then i would say theres your reasons

the other males smell his entire hormones but cannot assuage that with a clear and secure understanding of his facial expressions, so they growl.

in simple parlance, your dog is giving off vibes

I wonder if it can be that simple? If so, there would be a great number of hairy faced dogs constantly being threatened, surely the signals are so complex that they do not rely entirely on the eyes? Body posture, tail position, gait etc. etc.

I still favour the weakness thing Lesleyo. It would be a fascinating subject to study, but definitely not at the expense of your own dog!!!

I think dogs know when other dogs are not 100% 'ok'. I'm sure it's nothing your dog has done. My very placid jrt puppy attacked another dog at training - totally out of character. The other dog has a brain disorder and lots of things wrong with her and some of the dogs seem to know. Dan had a go at a Newf not long ago, also unprovoked and out of character. The owner said her dog had epilepsy among other problems and it happens a lot. Some dogs will have a go at dogs which are not 'normal' (sorry, not sure how to word it ) and they probably sense that he is different because of his deafness. Also the fact that he doesn't react to the growls will not help the situation!

On the other hand, some dogs just don't like pups, full stop.

i wonder why it cant be that simple

ie, why not the obvious instead of the complex theory?

also i said it was the facial expression issue combined with the entire hormonal smell

i was about to ask if anyone else had similar experiences, this has really grabbed my imagination now.

I just don't think that it is an obvious explanation, that's all.

It will be interesting to compare the like (such as myself and lokismum) with other theories

I wonder if it is because he doesn't have a tail so they can't read his body language? Is he docked? That with not being able to see the eyes combined?

We have a Kerry Blue terrier who we show so he has to have all that hair in front of his eyes but we tie it back in a bobble or plait so he can see properly. The breeders said he could see anyway but he had an accident on the park as I threw his ball and he didn't see the 1 foot high metal fence and crashed straight into it and lay on the ground whimpering for a minute poor thing!

Is there something about black dogs? My dog's all black and never had a problem with another dog. She's usually the one doing warning growls, not the other way around.

I don't know if this helps at all, but Suzanne Clothier wrote a great article about this. I wonder if your dog doesn't approach dogs in a way that makes them comfortable, but it's hard to say without seeing body language.

http://flyingdogpress.com/content/view/42/97/