How do dogs know what guns are?

[brassnuts]

Yesterday I bought a Sig P220. It's stainless steel two-tone, nice looking gun. Anyways, I took it out of its case today, and my dog immediately cowered. I didn't even point it at her, but I motioned toward her with it in a questioning manner and she ran away. She's never seen or heard a gun. How would she know what it does?

[ThaSaltCracka]

I think dogs may have some sort of sense which just knows that the item may harm them. I mean, dogs and other animals act funny before an earthquake comes so clearly they have some other senses we don't.

[wacki]

TV?

[whiskeytown]

it's probably not the gun, it's the action...

take your finger and point it like you're pointing a gun....I think a lot of dogs are used to that motion as meaning "bad dog" and reacting that way.

RB

[A_C_Slater]

recyclical carnation memory?

Maybe dogs have more sustained memory of previous lives and incarnations. If so, he might have been around many guns in his past life as hunting dog/and or killed/maimed by a gun when police or war dogging for an ancient roman army?

And don't say it's not possible.

[miajag81]

[ QUOTE ]
recyclical carnation memory?

Maybe dogs have more sustained memory of previous lives and incarnations. If so, he might have been around many guns in his past life as hunting dog/and or killed/maimed by a gun when police or war dogging for an ancient roman army?

And don't say it's not possible.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah those Carthaginians had some pretty impressive firearms. Wonder how the Romans beat them?

[M2d]

Grand Tourismo and other video games. I don't think dogs feared guns until nintendo duck hunt came out. it's been getting worse and worse ever since.

[A_C_Slater]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
recyclical carnation memory?

Maybe dogs have more sustained memory of previous lives and incarnations. If so, he might have been around many guns in his past life as hunting dog/and or killed/maimed by a gun when police or war dogging for an ancient roman army?

And don't say it's not possible.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah those Carthaginians had some pretty impressive firearms. Wonder how the Romans beat them?

[/ QUOTE ]


Oops. I meant to say Napoleonic army. Actually the Turks took Constantinople when it was part of the Western Roman Empire with gunpowder.

[CallMeIshmael]

[ QUOTE ]
I think dogs may have some sort of sense which just knows that the item may harm them. I mean, dogs and other animals act funny before an earthquake comes so clearly they have some other senses we don't.

[/ QUOTE ]

I dont know the answer... but I would assume that this is almost certainly not it.

A sense that differs from humans (ie. dogs can hear sound at different frequencies than us) can be explained by evolutionary pressures.

There are no such pressures on a dog to be afraid of a gun. Thus, it is almost certainly some sort of a learned and not innate behaviour.

[gorie]

you let your dog watch too many violent shows on tv.

either that or blame one of the ghosts in your house.