Reply to Why do people think it's okay to let their dog shout at people who walk by?

Forum Index » Pets

Reply to "Why do people think it's okay to let their dog shout at people who walk by?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The large number of totally trash dog owners in our neighborhood has resulted in my kid being terrified of dogs. Whether it's dogs aggressively running to their fence to bark-scream at everyone who walks by, or owners who refuse to leash their dogs at public parks or on walks, there are just a lot of unchecked dogs in our neighborhood and our DD has learned to just avoid dogs at all costs because she has no idea if they are going to lunge or bark at her. She sees them coming down the block and will instinctively put our bodies between her and the dog and grab hands for security. She does this even with well behaved dogs simply because she's had enough negative experiences not to trust them.

We have several friends with really sweet dogs and she won't go near their dogs even when they are on leashes and we have shown her that the dogs will not bark or bite or jump. She just wants nothing to do with them.

We love animals and have talked about getting a dog when we move if we have enough outdoor space, but we're rethinking it. At first we thought it would be good for her because then she'd see that dogs are not automatically aggressive and it could help reduce her fear. But it's so intense now that I don't know if it's a good idea.

Anyway, I'm sure the terrible dog owners in our neighborhood don't care about this because they are selfish people who adopted dogs even though the don't have the time or desire to properly train and manage their dogs, but they are making dog ownership look terrible to other people because when you are selfish and irresponsible, it is terrible![/quote]

PP, fwiw, my son had several bad experiences with off-leash dogs when he was little (and they weren't actually aggressive, just had poor owners who let them jump on him). So he also developed a fear of dogs. Fast forward five years, we have a dog of our own, and he adores him. All that to say, don't assume your daughter can't overcome the fear.[/quote]

+1  My son had the exact same issue with dogs when he was young.  Pinned down at a party by two large dogs (who didn't harm him, they were actually just licking him) and some neighbors small yappy dogs who would come running and barking.  But we got a big dog and he got over his fear of dogs.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics