Strange reaction to a poodle!

[Lori, Quincy & Frankie]

We had been at the dog park for about 45 minutes during which time Quincy had run off a lot of steam, chasing and running with several other dogs, sniffing butts and having fun.  He was just about running down when a beautiful standard poodle, just about his size, entered the park.  Quincy usually goes over to the new comers and does his sniff routine but when he headed over to the poodle, he all of a sudden came running back to us, whimpering like he had been hurt. I watched the whole thing-there was absolutely no contact. The poodle was making chase, but that is just what Quincy loves to do in the park.  He usually just outruns the other dog, instead he was whimpering and ran to us to hide between our legs.  Just in case you might think I missed something-there was a repeat  performance!  no contact, just ran away loudly whimpering--a real drama queen!  He was definitely fearful of this 8 month old poodle!  same size and younger than him!  very strange.  any thoughts?  did he just look too much like him, haha.

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

There are all kinds of things that happen with dogs' body language that we humans miss. It's hard to say what signals if any the poodle may have given off that caused Quincy to be fearful, but I'm pretty sure it had nothing to do with the poodle's breed or appearance, lol.

[Lori, Quincy & Frankie]

Thanks Karen. It certainly was in dog speak, whatever it was. I was especially surprised to learn from the owners that she was only 8 months old, too.  She must have uttered one heck of a dog dare the way Quincy carried on. lol !  

[Wendy and Myla]

That is so weird!!!  Wouldn't you just love to get into their minds!!!!  Maybe he just figured "Wow, there's a half doodle" and came to you to see what to do!!!!

[Nancy, Ned, Clancy, and Charlie]

Too funny, Wendy.

[Pat and Traveler]

Strange!  I don't have a clue...there are some dogs that just don't like each other, but this sounds like the poodle threatened him in dog-speak.  :)

[Christine & Camus]

Camus has had similar reactions to 2 or 3 dogs, he was really afraid.  I just walked him to a different part of the park and he soon forgot.

[Lee Seidman]

Maybe the Poodle was married ?

[Jennifer and Jack]

Jack has that effect on some dogs and a few have that on him...very few but I have seen Jack chase 60-80 pound dogs across the park when we used to go and bark at them ..the poor dogs never did anything ..I had to remove Jak the last time we went last year...he was picking on an adorable "lassie dog" for no reason I could see ..the other of was scared....I felt so bad.

[Jane, Guinness and Murphy]

This is really interesting....were there other dogs that "deferred" to the poodle or was it just Quincy?

[Sue, Murphy and Bella ()*o*()]

Maybe she was an evil dog in the doggie world, like valdamort in Harry Potter.? Sorry, just being silly, I know