Is this the face of a racist?

This is Kosmo, the beautiful, adorable and unsurprisingly dumb Cocker Spaniel we have been "dog sitting" for the holidays. I think I am in love.

Kosmo is not a typical dog.  He is not even a typical bird dog, being terrified of both birds and other dogs.  He is super cute and affectionate though, and he likes the Lincoln Memorial (a lot) but not the National Monument because of all the scary, fluttering flags.  He constantly tries to eat out of trash cans and, when at home, he threatens us with crying and peeing himself on the carpet if he doesn't get his own way.  (He learnt that trick from Hank)

But the really interesting thing about Kosmo is that he is clearly racist.  He runs away from other dogs BUT he will drag me across the road to say hello to other Spaniels, or part-Spaniels.  Interestingly he also likes Border Collies and, as Kosmo is quite large for a Cocker, I wonder if he may have some Collie in him. At any rate, he clearly discerns - and discriminates on the basis of - a dog's race.

But that is not the worst of it.

Kosmo also quite clearly dislikes black adult men.  Seriously.

I hear you cry "But Kosmo is black!"  Ah yes, but he doesn't see that.  All he knows is that he is scared of black men especially tall, well-built black men wearing dark-coloured hoodies.  Everyone in DC, of every age and ethnicity, wears hoodies when it gets really cold here; you can imagine that walking Kosmo right now is a challenge.  We can't leave him outside a shop while we pop inside; if a group of black men in hoodies walked by with non-Spaniel dogs, he would choke himself on his leash trying to run away.

Why is Kosmo so jittery?  We reckon much of Kosmo's weirdness comes from inbreeding.  There are very few Cocker Spaniels around DC, so my guess is that Kosmo's mum was probably also his cousin. The result is an adorable, curly-haired pure-bred dog.  But it will take its toll on the family genes, as Eddie Izzard's theory on the Royal family explains: