Does Disliking Dogs Make You a Sociopath?

Dogs are great, right? They’re sweet and loyal and affectionate. And boy are they cute! Even the ugly ones are cute. In fact, dogs are so endearing that, for many people, the mere mention of a dog is enough to bring a smile to their face.

Not everyone finds dogs so charming, though. Some people even downright hate them, which, to dog lovers, can be genuinely shocking. After all, dogs are man’s best friend. They have evolved alongside us for tens of thousands of years, and anyone who has known the love of a dog knows there’s nothing quite like it. For many people, that relationship is among the most nurturing and emotionally significant of their lives. So when they meet someone who feels differently, it can be tempting to view that aversion as not just a preference, but a moral failing.

Is it, though?

The dog-averse certainly don’t think so. There’s even a r/Dogfree subreddit for people who have chosen to live dog free and feel judged or put upon by dog lovers who view their anti-dog stance as something truly horrific, even going as far as to accuse them of being psychopaths. 

“I don’t think it’s fair to say someone isn’t a kind person, or that they lack empathy or compassion, simply because they don’t like dogs,” says psychologist Dr. Sam Zand of Anywhere Clinic.

And yet, our preferences do shape — and are shaped by — who we are and what we value. So is it really so wrong to wonder whether a person’s dislike of dogs says something about them more generally? Maybe it’s unfair to write them off entirely, but doesn’t an extreme negative reaction to such a sweet and loving creature tell us something?

Where Dog Aversion Actually Comes From

To a dog lover, an aversion to dogs can feel like an instant red flag. But there are many legitimate reasons someone might dislike dogs. Maybe they suffered a traumatic experience: an attack or a scare that permanently colored their perception. Maybe they simply didn’t grow up around dogs and, thus, never grew comfortable with them. Maybe they find dogs to be unpredictable or feel like dogs don’t like them. Or maybe they don’t feel regulated enough in their own nervous system to comfortably co-regulate with a dog. Or with any pet, for that matter.

“If it’s a dog-specific dislike, rather than pets in general, there’s often some kind of fear attached,” says Dr. Zand. “We really need to understand where that reaction came from. And the reasons can be very different for different people.”

Of course, you could ask someone why they don’t like dogs, but they might not want to answer. Or they might only give you a partial answer, depending on how safe they feel with you and how they expect you to react. In either case, people are not obligated to defend their preferences, especially if doing so makes them feel exposed and vulnerable.

You might believe that if you knew the reason, you’d be more understanding — and maybe you would be. But there’s no guarantee. Once someone shares that information, they’ve taken a risk without knowing whether it will be met with empathy or judgment. And unless you’re hoping to adopt a dog together, their reasoning is, in most cases, it’s really none of your business anyway.

Why Dog Lovers Take It Personally

When someone else’s preferences trigger a strong emotional reaction, it’s worth pausing to ask yourself why. Especially if and when those preferences don’t actually affect you. After all, a person can like you without liking dogs, just as you can dislike someone who happens to love them. These things are not mutually exclusive.

“I think there’s such a strong affinity and sense of compassion among people who love dogs that it’s hard for them to understand when someone doesn’t feel the same way,” says Dr. Zand. “People become biased by their own preferences.”

He compares this to someone who loves snakes struggling to understand why others fear them. “There’s also the whole dog-versus-cat thing,” he says, “where cats are seen as more fight-or-flight and dogs as more affectionate. That’s not always accurate, but that dichotomy pushes people to choose a camp.”

Dichotomies — black/white, good/bad, dog/no dog — can be useful mental shortcuts. They help us organize the world quickly and feel like we understand it. But they also strip away nuance and in doing so, they can be more alienating than illuminating.

As Dr. Zand points out, this tendency has been intensifying. “Right now, societally, we’re very divided,” he says. “This mirrors a lot of what’s happening elsewhere, where we’re encouraged to pick teams.”

And once we’ve picked a team, reactions tend to become stronger, more emotional, and less charitable, often far beyond what the situation actually warrants.

Making the Leap From ‘Doesn’t Like Dogs’ to ‘Bad Person’

Disliking dogs does not make someone a bad person. Just as liking dogs does not make them a good one. History — and daily life — offer no shortage of examples of cruel or destructive people who adored their pets. Not to mention kind, productive people who chose to live pet free or who preferred the company of a cat, bird, or fish to that of a dog. 

Most people know this, at least intellectually. Yet jokes suggesting otherwise are common and often socially accepted. I was reminded of this when a psychologist I contacted as a potential source for this story responded to my interview request by saying that she was herself a dog lover and that anyone who didn’t like dogs was “obviously crazy.” When I expressed concern about her statement, she stopped replying to my emails.

In another context, if I had approached the topic of this story differently, she might not have said what she did. Perhaps she assumed I would agree with her, or that I’d recognize it as a joke and we’d share a laugh before getting down to work. But the truth is, I felt caught off guard by her flippant and frankly unprofessional response. And it struck me how easy it is — even for someone trained to know better — to dismiss and belittle another person’s preferences, especially when they differ from their own.

She may have been joking, but for the people on the receiving end, those jokes don’t always feel harmless. Entire online communities exist for people who choose to live dog-free and feel judged for it. “Getting called ‘psychopath’ and ‘a bad person’ for disliking dogs is tiring,” writes one Reddit user, who responds by judging dog lovers just as harshly in return.

That escalation is understandable, but it’s also a symptom of the same problem.

Psychopathy, for the record, has nothing to do with dogs. What people usually mean when they use terms like “psychopath” or “sociopath” is antisocial personality disorder. Dr. Zand defines this as “someone who lacks remorse and often grew up in a fear-based environment where they weren’t given love, comfort, compassion, support, safety, or security. They learn early on that no one is there for them but themselves.”

Conflating that diagnosis with a pet preference isn’t just inaccurate, it trivializes real trauma. And when harmful ideas are framed as jokes, they have a way of slipping into our subconscious, shaping how we see others. First we laugh, then we categorize, and eventually we dismiss.

Sitting with Difference

If disliking dogs isn’t a reliable indicator of someone’s character, then why does it provoke such a strong reaction in so many people?

According to Dr. Zand, that reaction often has less to do with dogs than with self-judgment. “Judgment usually reflects self-judgment,” he says. When we feel secure in who we are and what we value, we’re less likely to feel threatened by difference. But when our sense of identity is tightly bound to certain beliefs or preferences, encountering someone who doesn’t share them can feel unsettling.

It’s also human nature to assume that what feels obvious or meaningful to us should feel the same way to others. “Often, we assume others feel what we feel, which is an egocentric belief,” he explains. “But every human has a unique experience on this shared journey.” When we forget that, difference can start to look like deficiency and preferences can get misread as pathology.

It’s at this point that we stop being curious about the person in front of us. We stop asking where someone else might be coming from and we start filling in the blanks with assumptions that often say more about us than about them.

None of this is meant to suggest that there is anything wrong with loving dogs or to finding joy, comfort, and meaning in the bonds we share with them. Far from it. But there is something ironic about reacting with suspicion or disdain toward those who don’t share your affinity for dogs, when that affinity is, itself, a product of open-mindedness and a willingness to accept and love something so different from ourselves. “It’s hypocritical to put people in camps and make them feel bad when really what we're talking about is being empathetic, affectionate, and connecting,” says Dr. Zand.

For that reason, the question isn’t whether disliking dogs is a red flag. It’s whether we can sit with difference — especially when it challenges something we cherish — without turning it into a verdict on someone else’s humanity. 

You know who would be great at that? A dog.