I think of my brother's girlfriend's dog (a Rottweiler) who went after a man hiding behind bushes. Figuring that no person has justifiable cause for hiding behind bushes (he was probably a mugger or rapist, and thus the sort of person who deserves to face an animal built like a tiger and with obvious similarities in behavior).
Unless trained for the role of doing evil at the command of a handler, as with the sorts of dogs that Nazi camp guards handled, dogs are very selective in how they deal with us. I would not expect a normal dog to get along with sociopathic types. Dogs are extremely good at reading people, and in the case of the creep hiding behind a bush awaiting the opportunity to do who-knows-what, a dog could be the worst possible enemy. Yes, some children have already developed sociopathic traits, and they need to avoid dogs just as they would avoid venomous snakes.
We have ordinarily taught children to avoid strange dogs. In India, feral dogs likely kill more people than do tigers. Dogs are capable of ripping creatures similar to us in size (like sheep) as prey. Are you all that surprised that two pit bulls killed a burglar in the greater Atlanta area last year? A house containing a medium-to-large dog might as well be a predator enclosure in a zoo.
I get along well with most dogs. I also train them to treat cats as a strange breed of dog called "mouse-hounds". Considering that dogs might be more trustworthy with cats (including kittens) than even other cats they might even be cats' best friends..
Unless trained for the role of doing evil at the command of a handler, as with the sorts of dogs that Nazi camp guards handled, dogs are very selective in how they deal with us. I would not expect a normal dog to get along with sociopathic types. Dogs are extremely good at reading people, and in the case of the creep hiding behind a bush awaiting the opportunity to do who-knows-what, a dog could be the worst possible enemy. Yes, some children have already developed sociopathic traits, and they need to avoid dogs just as they would avoid venomous snakes.
We have ordinarily taught children to avoid strange dogs. In India, feral dogs likely kill more people than do tigers. Dogs are capable of ripping creatures similar to us in size (like sheep) as prey. Are you all that surprised that two pit bulls killed a burglar in the greater Atlanta area last year? A house containing a medium-to-large dog might as well be a predator enclosure in a zoo.
I get along well with most dogs. I also train them to treat cats as a strange breed of dog called "mouse-hounds". Considering that dogs might be more trustworthy with cats (including kittens) than even other cats they might even be cats' best friends..
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.