The world is a scary place. There are plenty of things for people to be afraid of, from roller coasters to spiders to natural disasters. It’s possible that something can make you a little nervous and anxious, or you can have a phobia which is a more extreme case. When I was a little girl, I was diagnosed with a phobia, specifically cynophobia or the fear of dogs. I know that sounds lame and questionable considering that people say, “A dog is a man’s best friend,” but dogs and I have never gotten along.
It started when I was a little girl, and my grandmother would babysit me during the day while my parents were at work. At the time my grandma had a little poodle named Precious, and she loved Precious so much, but I absolutely hated it. Whenever someone would come to the door or Precious would see someone walking by the house through the window, she would constantly bark and bark and bark. I did not handle this well and would get very upset in this situation because her loud and high pitched bark would scare me as a little girl. I remember another encounter I had very well because of the emotional scar it gave me. One day, I was playing outside in my front yard at the age of three, and the family dog that lives across the street from me got out of the house somehow and came at a full speed sprint coming straight for me. The dog was twice my size at the time, and with all his momentum, he caused my feet to fly out from under me and knocked me hard to the ground.
After this incident happened, it was hard for me to play outside in my front yard, because when I saw a dog being walked down my street, even if it were 10 houses away, I would run inside for my mom. Unfortunately, there are a lot of dogs in my neighborhood, which made playing in the front yard a stressful task, so my last resort was to play in the backyard. It seemed like a simple conclusion to avoid confrontations with the neighborhood dogs, but of course, dogs found me back there, too.
My next door neighbor’s dog would dig holes under the fence because she heard me on my swing set. It’s like dogs everywhere could sense my fear and came straight for me. For example, when I started playing soccer around the age of four, our practices would be at a field that had apartment buildings close by. And with a park, comes dogs. Out of all the other kids, the dogs that were running wild and free would come right up to me. I would try to run away to safety but dogs found me wherever I would go. I wouldn’t want to play outside like a little kid would want to, I would cry and run away at the sight of a dog, and I wouldn’t go to someone’s house if they had a dog unless the dogs were locked up in another room, out of sight. In Kindergarten, it got to the point where I needed to get over my fear.
I met with a psychiatrist and doctoral candidates at the Ohio State University Stress and Anxiety Disorder Clinic. At this clinic, I was assigned a dog, a golden retriever named Ches, short for Chester. During my sessions, it was a progressive build up from being in the same room with Ches, to taking Ches for a walk, to even brushing Ches’ teeth. It was a long and challenging process, but I fought through it with the help of Chester, the best dog in the entire world, and the psychiatrists at Ohio State.
Today, dogs are still not my favorite, and I’m only really comfortable around a select few of my family and friend’s dogs. I would definitely never get a dog of my own, but I have come a long way. My friends will come up to me on a daily basis and show me a picture of a puppy saying, Look how cute this dog is! Oh wait.. I forgot you don’t like dogs…” I do not get excited when I see a dog on campus, because it’s just a dog, it’s not that exciting. However, I have found myself to be a self-proclaimed, godmother for my friend’s dog when she is gone traveling for lacrosse. My fear of dogs is the interesting fact I share about myself, because the whole world seems to be dog-obsessed, but that’s not how I roll. I will tolerate them, but I prefer to keep my distance.
