Facing fears

Fears.  We all have some, right?  One of mine happens to be dogs.  Couldn’t tell you exactly why, especially since I had pet dogs when I was young.  The point is simply that dogs frighten me.  The big ones scare me with their size even without any indication of aggression.  I can sometimes tolerate their presence if they’re fairly sedentary and not looking at me with hungry eyes (or if their owner or other adults are around).  The small dogs scare me with their barks and running around.  If they would just stay still and be quiet, I might actually warm up to them.  Maybe.  But instead I stay on high alert which somehow signals my fears to them which then makes them more hyper (= aggressive in my translation) which makes me more distressed and the cycle continues.

I’ve mostly been ok with this fear since it hasn’t hindered me too much in life.  I even dog-sat a very small dog once (poor owners probably had no idea that someone could be afraid of their child-substitute).  That experience was quite an adventure – I’m not sure if the dog was more afraid of me “breaking” into his home to get him or me afraid that he would either attack me or escape out the front door before I could get the leash on him.  It worked out alright but I think we were both relieved to go our separate ways.

Sometimes I do wonder about the best approach to face this fear.  Hang around a dog park?  Frequent my friends who have dogs?  Hmm, the latter doesn’t seem very effective since one dog I’ve “known” for several years now still makes me jump when she barks.

Not sure the best approach yet but I took a step tonight.  I went to a friend’s house to help with some house repairs and he said I could set up the ladder before he got there.  The neighbors have a dog – the medium-sized, barking kind.  Couldn’t tell you breed or any of that kind of info.  What I CAN tell you is that the fence is only about 2/3 my height – not too much bigger than the dog.

I’ve heard and seen this dog before but I was always safe up the ladder and not so close to the fence.  This time I would need to walk by the fence to set up the ladder.  This dog seemed to know I would provide some entertainment as soon as I opened the back door.  BARK BARK!  I would like to say I didn’t jump, but I’m not so certain.  Or maybe I’ve forgotten conveniently.  Regardless, I cautiously stepped out into the back yard, far from the fence, to weigh my options and calculate how far I could stay from the fence and hopefully not garner too much canine interest.  It looked risky so I went back inside.

I considered coming around from the front of the house – domain I had already mastered previously.  So I tried that approach but I guess the dog already anticipated my move and was ready at the fence to bark.  Um, ok, he probably didn’t move from his previous location about 20 ft away but he WAS barking and the fence looked low so I didn’t want to encourage him in any way.  So I went back into the house.

I considered just doing inside work until my friend arrived, but that seemed cowardly.  (No, really?)  I started telling myself, “You’re being silly!  Get over it and get out there! “  And away from the dog I actually regained some confidence.  So I stepped out back again.  No barking, no dog in sight.  That’s even scarier!  Where was he??  I edged along the side of the house pretending to be inspecting the high windows – partly in case anyone was watching, partly to “convince” the dog that I had real business to be there and he should just ignore me like before, and partly to keep myself calm by not looking for the dog.  I made it to the ladder and found that it had already been set up for me.  The tools I needed were on the ground and I picked them up.  BARK BARK!  I was up that ladder in no time.  But suddenly I felt safe again.

Unfortunately, I don’t always have ladders to climb when there’s a dog around so I really need to address this further at some point.  How do you face your fears?