There are three things I need to explain in regards to this phenomenon.

First, in the animal mind, the form-of-a-thing, such as a human, cat, deer, etc, or sometimes even a log, is the confluence of two energies, predatory and prey. The ratio of these two energies compose a “being”, a specific emotional value, one that can change from moment to moment and hence the variety of responses a dog can manifest to the same person or thing. For example, a sensitive dog often becomes afraid of its owners if it sees them wearing a hat or a bulky coat, or comes upon them in an unfamiliar situation. In such a context the predatory value of the form is weighted higher than normal and this new energetic value knocks the dog out of balance because it does not associate that specific electromagnetic vibration as being its owner.

We can think of predatory energy as electric and preyful energy as magnetic; thus, the form-of-a-thing engenders a specific electromagnetic vibration in an animal’s perception of it, just as molecules are arranged and just as the sense of smell works (according to a new theory as detailed in the “The Emperor of Scent”). In other words, a dog doesn’t think of its owner as a Being, but as being a specific electromagnetic vibration of a predatory aspect relative to a preyful aspect along a spectrum. This value is transmitted in all things of that form, from body language, deportment and carriage, even scent. And this ratio engenders a feeling and this, rather than thoughts, is how a dog knows its owner. {A log is normally a pure preyful essence and hence has no “being” unless that is, it rolls or looms out of nowhere so that the form alerts or scares the dog and then the dog will assign a predatory aspect to some feature of the log and it will respond to it just as if its another living being. The more sensitive the dog’s temperament, the lower its threshold in this regard and the longer lived will be that impression of the log as a “Being”.}

Second, in the early imprinting phase of a dog’s life, the forms-of-things it experiences and interacts with solidify as a physical memory in its emotional battery. These physical memories become templates that are then applied to the forms of like-things because the emotional battery potentiates the brain. In the battery there are “squirrelzoids,” “catzoids,” “deerzoids,” “dogzoids,” “humanoids,” etc., etc., populating the perceptual catalogue. The first human a dog knows becomes the master “humanoid” imprint that is then applied to all other humanoids for the rest of the dog’s life and on which all subsequent experiences are catalogued in its emotional battery. (This is the essence of socialization. For example, if a dog is sequestered from other humans, it will grow up to weigh the subtle discrepancies between forms as more important than the broader generalities and perceives these lesser variants as predatory aspects, and so sensitive dogs are what I call “form sensitive”. They go by sight rather than by feel and by smell.) So when a dog is raised and socialized with a cat, this specific catzoid template is then applied to all other cats on sight and the dog “likes” cats (at least indoors, there could be a different template for cats outdoors because the ratio of predator/prey could be different given that cats are far more likely to run outdoors). If a dog was imprinted that deer = prey then this “deerzoid” template is applied to all other deer and the dog chases them on sight. A form-on-sight reflex is adaptive because in this way an animal doesn’t have to break down a form in its mind in order to arrive at an immediate impression of the emotional value of that thing. The value is acquired on sight.

Thirdly and finally, because nature is the ultimate “programmer” unparalleled in elegant efficiency, it always gets the most behavioral range for the fewest lines of code, and so it is that on the instinctual level of apprehension the animal mind does not distinguish between something moving fast and something that is novel. If a wolf is going along a trail and a tree has fallen across the way, the wolf doesn’t distinguish in that instant between something moving fast and something that has changed since the last time it cruised that trail. Either way, it could be a predator rushing at it–or about to rush at it — and so the wolf might as well be afraid of it on sight. Nature doesn’t care if this makes individuals unnecessarily nervous in other aspects of its existence. (In fact, chronic anxiety serves another and deeper agenda in the broader scale of things.) Something new equals something moving fast, and this linkage thereby increases the predatory component in the dog’s perception of its form and so the form becomes a “being”. (Stanley Coren once wrote that dogs don’t wag their tails at inanimate objects. I’ve seen dogs wag their tails at a stack of boxes, a mail box, even a pan of food.)

Now let’s put these three components together to understand the specific instance of a dog encountering a stranger at the door.

For most dogs, for dozens if not hundreds, if not thousands of times, the humanoid at the door was its owner, the prime humanoid by which it will come to assay all other humanoids. Hundreds of times the door opens and there is the first humanoid coming through the threshold and lavishing the dog with praise and attention. “Hey Rascal, how ya doing, I’m back buddiiiieee!” And so the dog associates the humanoid at the doorway with 200,000 volts of energy; it can plug into this first humanoid because it can feel the preyful essence of its beloved first human because this form makes it feel grounded. Then one day many, many repetitions later, the door opens and OMG there stands a humanoid, for which the dog has 200,000 volts of attraction—and yet has no feeling because the discrepancy between its form and the default template is perceived as fast movement. Indeed it’s 200,000 volts worth of fast movement. And when was the first time the dog experienced a humanoid moving fast? When its owner acted strange, i.e. rushed at it really fast because the dog as a puppy was about to piddle or poop on the carpet, or about to tug on an electrical wire, or when s/he was first corrected for getting into the garbage, or gnawing on the sofa and so on.

A dog has no idea that a stranger at the door is someone who doesn’t belong in the house or on the property. The dog is energized to 200,000 volts just like it is every time the owner comes home, and it is compelled to plug into the humanoid in order to ground out this energy. Some dogs will even run to another part of the house as if to “get” their owner and “let it know” that someone’s at the door. But what they’re really doing is feeling a pull to their owner because they can’t plug into the humanoid at the door. Other times soothing words from the owner, or even the stranger: “It’s okay Rascal. It’s okay” will trigger prey-energy value and this might help the dog feel grounded into the stranger.

But otherwise the dog still has 200,000 volts of ungrounded energy to contend wit,h and in canines the behavioral/physiological adaptive response to this dilemma is to download energy by barking in order to decrease the overwhelming pressure of energy that’s not moving. (After all, barking at kitty did get it to move.) And sure enough the person might flinch or sweet talk (acts prey-like) and this gives the dog some degree of grounding and the energy subsides below a critical threshold that then does allow for contact. (Or if the energy stays high, the dog might then bite.) At this lower level, and because of the response in the humanoid, the person at the door thereby acquires a new electromagnetic emotional signature and in most cases the dog can compose in its mind a new “Being” for this owner-acting-strange humanoid.

Interestingly, if one raises a dog to be socially confident and without intense greeting rituals when coming and going: then, unlike the average family pet, they tend not to bark at strangers. When I used to import Schutzhund-titled dogs from Germany, they performed all the protection routines beautifully, but because they were raised so holistically in their original trainers’ progressive sports-like way, they often wouldn’t bark at strangers, – even after months of living in a home and so this is where I ended up concentrating most of my training after installation. The SV (the governing sports body in Germany) even instituted a “watch dog” test so that its dogs would reliably perform this basic household service in addition to the exotic and advanced skills required of a working police dog. What good was all this fancy training if the dog didn’t bark at strangers?

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1. Why Do Dogs Prefer to Drink From Toilets?
2. Why Do Dogs Love Car Rides?
3. The Mind of Squirrel Dog

The opportunity for the release of fear occurs when the dog feels safe. That fear is being is expressed is why one can observe in such a dog a tell tale “scoot” in its hind end with a tucked tail and hunched in hindquarters as it corners and gathers itself for the next fly by. It looks just as if the dog is being chased by an imaginary predator close on its heels nipping at its tail so that it has to zig and zag to keep away from it.

You can see the identical behavior in cats that find themselves out in the yard, a gust of wind kicks up a leaf and the cat zoom-zoom-zooms until it finds itself up a tree and “safe.” Another example of the behavior can also be found in a litter of dogs. One puppy isn’t comfortable engaging in the group scrum with all the head knocking going on in the pile, and so not being able to participate directly but feeling just as energized as the others nonetheless: it races around orbiting the litter because it’s afraid to make direct contact.

Needless to say, the worst thing an owner can do is encourage this kind of behavior or play chase because now they are becoming the very embodiment of the imaginary predator. This will come back to haunt them in one way or another as we shall see when we plumb the nature of fear and the role it plays in nature.

Related posts:

1. Why Do Dogs Wag Their Tails?
2. 7 Steps to a Stress-Free Vet Visit
3. Why Are Dogs Attracted to Human Beings?