If dogs or cats were to evolve to human level sapience, do you think they would develop racist beliefs divisions based on breed, fur colour, or fur patterns?

My dog is an equal opportunity dog hater. She hates all dogs. I would bet she would be racist, classis(classism?) and a bully.

Yes. I can think of some anxious ones who are full of prejudices. My old dog used to be convinced that big, black dogs (like herself) are bad news. She should have looked in the mirror, but I guess it wasn’t exactly at eye level. My current dog is extremely chill, and he shows no signs of racism at all.

I think there’s a strong correlation between anxiety and hate, in both people and animals.

My son and his wife had a Brittany Spaniel in the States. My son swore that every time they ran into a Westie, the Westie would look with loathing on Merlin. Then they moved to Paris and all the Westies there hated Merlin too so yes, there does seem to be racism in dogs. Unless, on the internet, everyone actually does know who’s a dog!

I don’t think intelligence has different “levels” per species. I think species have different types and orientations of intelligence.

Conventional modern humans, in their eagerness to feel superior and entitled to eat, kill, control and own other species, have tended to think they’re significantly smarter than animals. So from that perspective, this question might seem to make sense, but I am certain that other species could certainly develop even more thinking ability without becoming from human-like. “Racism” is a human thing.

What animals whose thinking changed would do, who knows? Racism certainly isn’t a foregone conclusion, even for humans. And even ordinary cats and dogs certainly can exhibit tribal preferences, if not generally based on the same criteria humans choose.

It will be a dog eat dog, cat claw cat world. The strongest will form political packs and the weakest better submit or they are dinner. Once in a rare while there will be aberrations. One dog would show what humans call compassion towards a helpless hungry stray but highly doubtful if this sort of behaviour will catch on fast enough before its few adherents get slaughtered.

Obviously, you’re not factoring butt sniffing into the probabilities.

I would think dogs would discriminate based upon the odor of the butt.

@Caravanfan – HOWEVER, butt odor is potentially an equalizer if it signals desirability that outweighs appearance factors.

Not that I’d know for sure. Well, there was that one time…

@JLoon There was this one time? In band camp?

Yes, indubitably.

Miaow.

@Caravanfan – It was my First Communion. I was sort of confused.