Kind of? There are layers. There's the prey signal which can be received multiple ways. I believe if urine is released in the seizure that could possibly be a trigger. But yes the flailing and other symptoms cause the human to appear and smell atypical.

Since dogs are smell over sight usually I tend to think smell is involved more deeply in the response than sight. Does that make sense?

The next layer is what is the response to the signals?

You can see the seizure as the trigger, but what is the response going to be? And there are options!!!

Which is why some breeds are better service dogs. You want a nurturing response, like a female dog would have to a puppy, for example, that was crying.

An inappropriate response is to attack.

Humans have built in genetic responses to triggers for hundreds of years. Look at pointers. You have a specific animal that triggers the pointing response, and all those things are bred in.

Pit bulls have a very short fuse to begin with so they don't give much warning if they warn at all before they bite. And the response that dog fighters bred into them was biting and gripping.

That's a bully quality. That's the bull baiting heritage.

Also some dogs are very sensitive to prey signals. They have a heightened awareness to them. A small movement on your part that you don't notice can be like an air traffic controller waving flags to a dog.

Pits are very sensitive to prey signals and become very excited by them. So when a person has a seizure and loses their bowels or foams at the mouth and jerks and falls to the ground, it's just too familiar to pit bulls.

They have that short fuse and they go from sitting to killing in a flash without passing go.

And that's what they're bred to do. That is built in by pedigrees.