Can dogs tell if another dog is "bad"?

[courtnek]

seems like a silly question I know. I know they can tell if people are "bad",
but other dogs?

Kyle had some friends over yesterday who brought their dog with - a Rottie/Akita mix. He said this dog loved people, but didnt like other dogs.
He derived this opinion from watching it snarl and warn off another friends dog, at that friends house. I let them put it on a long lead in the front yard, attached to the fence, and let my dogs out the back. The fence was seperating them from any altercation, 6 ft wooden privacy. But slatted, so they could see and smell each other through it.

Freebee of couse went all ballistic at first - my house, my yard...bark,bark, bark...and the dog DID NOT REACT AT ALL...just laid down and looked uncertain. Kyle (and the owners) were amazed. After seeing how Bracy reacted to the other kids dof, they thought for sure she was dog-intolerant. I went out to meet her, she's definitely a people-sweetheart. but didnt seem aggressive to Freebee at all (that takes some doing) and Laurel ignored her completely. I didnt let them meet, except through the fence, more because I was afraid Freebee would get territorial than Bracy...so my question is...was there something about the other dog, or the other kid, she picked up on? Now, I;m not particularly fond of this kid either...he has issues...and doesnt come here anymore.

?????

[pei obssessed]

I think dogs would read the signals of other dogs much easier than we can. To give you an example--my Hippo loves to meet all dogs and if she sees one coming she sort of pulls on the leash towards the dog (and if the onwer says it's ok, then they meet). But once in a while (and it happenned a few times!), she sees a dog anddoesn't try to approach it. Whenever this happenned, the other dog would start barking and snarling as we were going by! So before anything happens, she's able to tell that she shouldn't go there.
So to come back to Bracy, she might have sensed the other dog wasn't friendly and warned him off first, or even more likely--maybe the other dog was a male or it wasn't fixed and that's why Bracy didn't like him. There are all kinds of factors that could have set him off.
So I guess yes, dogs can tell if a person or dog is "bad" and I think they base their knowledge on body signals and smells that we don't have access to.

[kendalyn]

I hope so!

Once in a while we'll come across a dog that Buck just doesn't really like for some reason. I can't really tell what it is all the time. But I hope it's based on something more than randomness :lol: