I guess I'm not being very clear tonight ... maybe I need more caffeine.

I certainly know that dogs can and do form impressions based on all their senses, sight included. He smells steaks coming out of a styromfoam cooler once, and the next time he sees a styrofoam cooler he tries to get the lid off to see if there is a steak inside. A teenage boy in a baseball cap throws a rock at him, and the next time he sees a teenage boy in a hat, he cowers behind his owner. A big, bull-type dog frightens him once when he a puppy, and he growls at all big bull-type dogs he sees. He used to enjoy playing with a large, long-haired dog as a puppy and he is friendly to all large, long-haried dogs he meets now. I believe all these things are true and valid.

What I do NOT believe is that a dog is born with prejudices and "breedism", and can distinguish an entire breed and hate them, for no reason whatsoever. A human is not even born with prejudices and racism, something triggers it - something a child is told or shown or taught encourages and rewards prejudice. No human child is born disliking another race or religion or culture - they are taught to recognise members of that group and taught to dislike them.

SOMETHING is triggering the dog's reactions as well, they do not come from thin air. No puppy is born disliking boxers or huskies or labs - something the dog sees or hears or smells teaches him to recognise and dislike similar animals, whether the similarity happens to be in looks or actions or smell. We might not know about or remember or recognise what the situation was, but it exists, nonetheless. Dogs can hear and smell things we can't detect, and we can't possibly know every nuance of how dogs communicate. Perhaps there was a sound or scent or canine body language present in an initial encounter that we didn't notice - but that nonetheless was engraved in the dog's memory.

I'm not saying a dog can't dislike or fear a dog that looks or acts or smells a certain way. They can and do. But I do not believe for one minute that a dog simply decides to hate every dog of a certain breed, for no reason at all.