I came upon this great picture the other day. Not only were the 3 labs absolutely beautiful representations of each color of Labrador Retrievers, but the message was so ‘right on.’ I don’t think that dogs’ care about color or breed differences at all. They may be aware of major size differences, but I am not really sure what they think about the other dog when it is bigger or smaller than them – ‘Oh, it’s another dog, but it sure is weird-looking.”
Dogs live in a world of smells; they seem to judge everything through the ‘sniff’ test. If something smells different, then they get concerned. Since sight is so limited in most dogs, I don’t think they care much about how something looks. I don’t think you will ever hear a dog say, “Oh you are ugly, so I am not going to play with you.” Do different dogs smell different? That I don’t know. I couldn’t find much research on this. Does your dog show any sign of perceiving a difference between itself and another dog’s breed/color/etc? Not having ‘single breed’ dogs, I am not able to observe if this comes into play at all. All I can say is that Louise and Sofie could not be more different in breed mixes and color but two dogs couldn’t be closer in affection for each other. (And they both smell equally as bad when wet.)
Just another DogDaz morning at the zoo ❤ 
DogDaz Zoo 
Bassas Blog
July 13, 2012 at 03:36
Great post, great picture and great message!
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dogdaz
July 14, 2012 at 18:52
Thanks Bassa. I really did like the 3 together.
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jmgoyder
July 13, 2012 at 04:15
I love this!
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dogdaz
July 14, 2012 at 18:53
Thanks – always fun when you find a good picture and message to match.
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Genevieve Petrillo
July 13, 2012 at 06:03
Great picture! Cupcake loves first and asks questions later.
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dogdaz
July 14, 2012 at 18:53
Yes Cupcake – I took you for a lover not a fighter.
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Misty Shores Chesapeakes
July 13, 2012 at 11:40
Great message.
I can say from experience that my dogs do react to some breeds differently. I think sometimes it may be the very light colored eyed dogs and at times I have seen my dogs not like black dogs, don’t know why. On one occasion they all had a problem with dogs that have stand up ears. Now I am only speculating on this as with process of elimination those were the only characteristics that were different but who really knows the workings of a dogs mind 🙂
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dogdaz
July 14, 2012 at 18:57
Misty – I would tend to agree. I find that Louise, though a black dog, does not like ‘black’ people at first. Maybe they perceive them as a ‘dark’ spot in their visual field and it scares them. Now stand up ears, hummmm, that is interesting. To the dogs maybe it is a sign of dominance? Do your dogs’ ears raise when they are on alert?
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Misty Shores Chesapeakes
July 14, 2012 at 22:54
That is a good observation, I hadn’t thought about the ears as a dominance thing.
Yes their ears will be up when they are listening or think there is something there. You are probably right about the dark spot in their visual field, I hadn’t thought of that.
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Doggy's Style
July 13, 2012 at 12:30
Doggy for instance, doesn’t like to play with furry dogs like him, he however, loves to play with dogs with short hair I know it seems random but that’s the only sign of “discrimination” he shows, which to me makes no sense since he was surrounded by dogs like him till he was 4 months old.
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dogdaz
July 14, 2012 at 18:58
Fur-minance vs do-minance – who knows.
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