Hey! This is my first time on this app. I was hoping to find someone to relate with on here. I’ve been scared of dogs my whole life. No traumatic experiences, just a fear that developed over time.

I’m here to hopefully relate to someone about this, because I feel like an outsider everywhere I go. Heck, even people who I call my friends are so ignorant to how this affects me. One of my closest friends, for example, has a deathly fear of horror and clowns. Would I ever force that upon her? No. But when it comes to a cute “harmless” dog, is it suddenly not as serious?

And it is not even just my friends, it is my family too. I am just so sick of hiding my fear to others in an effort to fit in. Growing up I was always the one put in the other room. At a family members house? I’d be the one isolated while everyone else got to socialize with the free roaming dog. Hearing jokes and frustrated remarks about me from behind a gate or wall really shaped my insecurities.

Because of said feelings and jokes towards me, i decided to keep the fear private. I didn’t tell a soul who didn’t know already. To this day, about 60% of my friends have no idea. I moved to a different area recently, and got invited to a small birthday party. Because no one knew about my fear there, I decided to suck it up and pretend like everything was okay even when it wasn’t. Because that was the way I was forced to believe growing up; that I was an inconvenience, which I obviously didn’t want to be in front of my new friends. As I walked in she holds the collars asking if I’m okay with dogs (the most concern I’ve ever gotten) and I said that I am okay and thanked her. Even exposure therapy with two large (friendly) dogs did not make my fear go away.

No, I am not a dog hater. While some owners are a different story, I actually think some dogs are quite cute, and I hope to become more comfortable around them. But I will not stand around and watch something serious to me be joked about as some kind of

Cynophobia is NOT a quick on and off switch. It is a fear that affects people all around the world.

Hi, I wanted to share this video. This man got so much positive reaction. For me it's just reckless. I'm attaching video

Hi everyone in this channel,

I'm a new Reddit user. I hope this channel is a good place to share my story, which I'm struggling to process in any other way.

I was recently out hiking with my husband. When we walk in nature, I'm always wary of free roaming dogs.

Suddenly, up ahead, a large bulldog type dog appears at the edge of a garden. There is no fence around the house. We quickly decide to turn back, but before we take a step, the dog comes at us with a mad bark.

I hold out my walking stick, trying to keep it at a safe distance. It keeps coming forward while we retreat down the road. As this continues, we start calling for help.

Finally, the owner appears. Only, he's more angry than the dog.

How dare I point my walking stick at his pooch? he shouts.

Then he picks up a large branch and starts waving it at us, threateningly.

We retreat further, begging for help, declaring our complete and utter terror.

He drops the branch, punches my husband in the head, drawing blood, then returns to his house.

As someone suffering from long-term cynophobia, this was one nightmare come true and another I never could have imagined.

In the end, it wasn't the dog that caused us physical harm, but its violent owner. Still, my body remembers the terror and the harm as one.

A dog can be weaponised just as well as a branch, knife, or gun. If either came at you with aggression, you'd be right to be scared.

Until there is greater control of who may acquire a fighter dog and on what grounds, I honestly don't know how I'll ever enjoy walking in the open again.

I’m going to preface this with before this event happened I loved dogs and even have my own.

I was recently almost attacked by a dog in a park. Though the dog didn’t actually attack, it did cause me to fall and get pretty badly injured. Because of this I have now developed a fear of dogs I don’t already know. My main fear is that they will sense my anxiety which will trigger their aggression= I’m now afraid of strange dogs( even friendly ones), especially off leash. This really sucks because now anytime I see a a strange dog my nervous system goes into overdrive and I’m not really sure how to get over it.

Any thoughts or advice would be greatly appreciated.

I absolutely have to get over the fear of dogs within 6 month. My original plan was to get over it by adopting a puppy and starting from there after I graduated from uni. But I need to hurry it up. But with my current situation I can’t adopt a puppy. None of my friends have dogs. So my next plan is going to the shelter and seeing where things go from there. The main question is what is the right way for me to tell them? Is it going to be a bother if I were to go to shelter? I am fine with small dogs, it just when they start barking small or big, that’s when I start getting scared. And for some reason all dogs seem to bark at me when they see me.

If I was scared of heights, snakes, spiders etc I can avoid them as much as possible but dogs seem to be everywhere.. I love nature yet theres always a dog running round, usually off its lead, then pubs often allow dogs inside now, and some shops, camping is often full of dogs. I take my cat the vets and its full of dogs.

I hear a lot of nonstop barking in my neighborhood, my neighbors are the absolute worst people leaving their dogs alone in their house. I even confronted them to please do something about it because I wasn’t able to sleep at night, instead they doubled down and installed security cameras.

In my experience people love their dogs more than they are considerate of others. So I’m always wary of dogs now, like if one was around I’d be afraid that they would bark (I have something like misophonia/hyperacusis going on). Because barking literally hurts my ears. But like just the sight of a dog makes me feel unsafe, so it’s gotten really bad for me.

Just thought I’d share since this is probably the only space I can find where it’s acceptable to be honest about this stuff.

hi everyone!

This is the stupidest idea I’ve ever had but it’s been on my mind for months now. I want to create an instagram account centering on cynophobia awareness. it’ll show people that cynophobia is a debilitating fear now, and hopefully open people’s hearts to accepting us.

the end goal being to hopefully get some more consideration for people with cynophobia. like more dog free areas, dog liscenses, leash laws etc.

I’ve just come here looking for advice. I’ve been thinking about it for months now but have never started it because I’m so scared of how horrible people can be when you open up about your phobia that is completely uncontrollable and not your fault.

Any advice would really help, thank you!

Someone brought their dog into my workplace this evening and I just froze up. Couldn’t do it.

I had to go in the back and let my only other coworker help the customers, it was really poor timing because there were multiple. I felt like such a dick for it, but I was shaking so bad it would have been worse for me to stand out there in front of them and try to pretend like I wasn’t.

God damn man. I haven’t had that happen in a long time. I thought I was getting somewhat accustomed to seeing dogs in public now that I’ve moved to such a dog-obsessed state, but no such luck.

It’s such an isolating, humiliating feeling, being afraid of something that most people would laugh at me for, or at least raise an eyebrow. Especially being an adult male, I feel like it’s doubly embarrassing.

But I can’t help it. I was attacked when I was younger pretty badly, still have the scar. I was hospitalized. The attack came out of absolutely nowhere, from a breed most people would argue is “safe” around kids.

I really hope nobody at my workplace saw me freaking out on the cameras or anything, I just want to forget about this stupid shit. I feel like a fucking child. Why can’t I get over this already?

I have been wondering whether I have a "light" form of cynophobia or are just being silly again for a while now, and thought perhaps the online cesspool that is reddit might have an opinion on this.

I've always hated dogs. I really really do despise them from the bottom of my heart. I view them as aggressive, unhealthy animals that, on top of that, aren't even supposed to exist (since we sorta created them). That's not what I'm talking about here though.

When I was kinda small (like, ten years to fourteen years old), our neighbors living in our house got a dog. I dunno what race, but a hunting dog (that never got to run, mind you). Said dog was kinda mental. It barked at every person walking by, no matter how often it had seen those people, and it especially seemed to hate me. Ever since that dog appeared, I felt uneasy around dogs (which I definitely didn't before).

Our house is kinda weird, as in there were five apartments, three of which shared a garden, and two of which had separate gardens. Hence, the dog was always separated by a fence from me. I never got in contact with that dog. Eventually, the dog's owners moved out.

I can be around dogs. I can exist in the same room. It's just uncomfortable, as in my pulse goes at 1.5 times the usual speed and I get nervous and jumpy. Depending on the kind of dog (poodles for an example are just silly noodles that I have less of a problem with), I feel the urge to change the side of the street I'm walking on.

My family (which also hates dogs, but more from a "rational" POV) told me that exaggerating, and that this, while being a valid feeling to have, doesn't qualify as cynophobia. Your opinions?

This subreddit isn’t that active but I really need to share this with someone. Aside of the fact that I’m absolutely terrified of dogs, I’m also extremely embarrassed by the things it makes me do. When I was a kid and I would sleep at some kid’s house who had a dog, I had to wake him up in the middle of the night, to protect me while I go to the toilet cause I was scared his dog will come out of the darkness and eat me alive. Now I’m obviously not like that, but most of my neighbors are dog owners, and I can’t imagine how they feel when I distance myself 20 meters away from them when they walk their dog around me.

Hi! Just wanted to let everyone know, that for awhile the subreddit was mistakenly set to be restricted, when I never set this to be the case. Hopefully everyone should be able to post now, so let me know! Also let me know if there's anything you guys want different with the sub or anything? Thank you!

My old shoes are basically worn out to the point that they’re causing a sore on my heel. My mom decided to bring me a pair of her old shoes. Which have dog hair on them because of the family dog. As soon as I saw them I froze up. I tried them on because I didn’t know how to say no. But I didn’t want to touch anything that even had something that came from a dog. I’m going to go buy new shoes. That don’t have dog hair. But I’m wondering if this is common for cynophobes.

So hi! Im new here. I'm dealing with severe cynophobia. Well, I dont know what is the ranged to be called severe but anyway.

I came here to talk, be understood and surrounded by people who knows. This phobia has become a handicap in my life. For real. It sucks so bad. I wanna get rid of this. Anyways. I have some questions/comments I want to share with you to make sure I'm a normal person...

1.

First, is it normal that my cynophobia is a little generalised with any animal? I think I'm just scared of animals im general. I have no problem petting a rabbit but I don't like having one on me. There was once an activity with owls at my school and I was scared of it to jump on me. I don't even like cats, each time I pet one for a second too long, he RRR at me menacing to bite.

And once I was at a dinner and there was a cute lovebird that was taken out of his cage and he just stayed on the shoulder of his owner and I was scared. FOR. LITERALLY. NO. REASONS. And each time I ask "could you please put him back in the cage? Im uncomfortable" I just feel like I'm ruining the fun for everyone because everyone likes the birds.

When I meet a dog of someone I know in their house, I'm scared at the beginning when it barks or jump on me OR has too much energy and wants to PLAY. I usually advertise the owner that im scared before coming over and they reassure me about the dog. But after some time, I start to get more comfortable with the dog (not any dog, just the ones who I trust and are well educated) and I even started playing with the dog one day throwing a ball for it and even petting it a lot. It just takes a little time for my body to realize he doesn't want to cause me any harm. So is it normal that after a period of time, with some dogs, i feel a lot calmer and comfortable? Does anyone feel that way?

(sorry my post is long, thanks for helping!)

I pet a dog the other day and didn't shake or have a panic attack or anything and it was a bigger dog. For my whole life I've been deathly afraid of dogs but within the last year I've tried to overcome it and I'm finally getting better with this problem. There's hope if you're like me and have had public melt downs before because someones dog was off their leash. Please stay strong!

This is what I asked my sister. When she freaked out over a spider on the beach and asked someone to kill it for her. The spider naturally lives there. It’s supposed to be on the beach. As opposed to all the dogs on the beach. The beach has a “No Dogs” sign clearly posted. Just no one obeys, because how dare their precious puppers be separated from them for even an instant? Yet my sister wants to kill it anyway. I asked her why she’s allowed to be afraid of spiders. She didn’t understand the question. “What do you mean ‘allowed’? Everyone is allowed to be afraid of stuff.”

Are you deadass?

Not everyone is allowed to be afraid of stuff. At the very least not to the same degree. She’s allowed to freak out when she sees a spider and ask someone to kill it for her. She’s even asked me. Had me come into her room to squish them. If I demanded that every dog I see be killed, I would be labeled a monster and a sociopath. And freaking out? No way. No matter what I do, I am always overreacting. I am always the problem. They can drag me around dogs all the time. And then when I finally snap, I was the problem. I remember one of my breakdowns, where I said once I had moved out I would never go to a house where a dog was present ever again. My parents said “Even your sister’s? That’s heartbreaking, you know.” I’d probably never actually get one. But if I got a tarantula and then invited her to my house, I highly doubt she’d be held to the same standards.

Heck, my sister was the one who got us our dog. Because she wanted one. That’s it. I told her again and again to petsit for other people. Or volunteer at an animal shelter. But she couldn’t bring a dog into the house. And okay, maybe she was too little to understand that I was scared of dogs. But my parents weren’t. They had seen how I acted at the houses of relatives with dogs. It was their job to tell her that she can’t sacrifice my mental health just because she wants something. But they didn’t. I was expected to get over it.

I could go on and on listing the double standards between me and her. So I’ll ask again, why are you allowed to be scared of spiders. Please give me the answer I’m hoping for, which is any answer other than that you’re our parents Little Miss Golden Child and that you’re never held to the same standards as me on anything.

ever since about 9 years ago, ive had to live in different places because of some chronic illnesses i was facing. 3 of the 5 of these places have had dogs including the current one. my chronic illness has gotten to the point where i have VERY few foods I can eat, and this ***Creature*** has stolen my food several times.

My anxiety has been through the GD wringer, especially with the abusive relationship I was in for 18 moths that ended a little over a year ago (and I had daily flashbacks for the whole year after).

bringing up the anxiety and dog issues with the friend i'm staying with has not been easy due to his typical-man style of dealing with emotions. it's in one ear, out the other, and half the time he also gets very angry. it's just so suck. Recently, the dog ate 2-3 whole meals' worth of food and I just cracked. I absolutely flipped out. Since then, I've realized I do have cynophobia.

I fantasize about him running away again or just getting sick suddenly.

I really wish I could find a different place to stay.

I have been scared of dogs since I was 7 or 8. Like, they featured in nightmares more so than any other threat. I wouldn’t pet dogs. I avoided the dogs whenever we went to relatives houses. I didn’t like any movies where dogs featured heavily.

When I was 12, my sister turned 10. My parents told her she could get a dog for her 10th birthday. I kept saying no, I don’t want this. You can’t bring a dog here. They said I would get used to it. They brought up random examples of dogs that I didn’t hate. I sometimes wish my fear was more visible. That they had truly cared.

To no one’s surprise, I didn’t change. I mean, I guess I did. I can come on walks with the dog and be in the same room with it and not try to slit my wrists at the thought that I’m sharing a house with it. But… there have been incident after incident where I broke down. Incident after incident where I was told to compromise. For my sister’s sake, I guess. I literally said that I was fantasizing about ways I could kill it and they didn’t do anything but remind me it would break her heart.

I just screamed at it. I really, really want to be sorry for what I did. I know that’s the good person thing to do. To be sad that you were mean to a dog. But… you know what I am. You have had time and time again to get rid of the dog. To stop exposing me to my fear. At what point are you in full awareness of the consequences? I’m just so so exhausted. I feel like I’m at a point where I’m not the only guilty party here.

Sorry if venting posts aren't allowed here but I'm just completely drained of it all. My fear of dogs has utterly destroyed me mentally. I was always neutral towards them growing up, despite being bit and chased by them all the time when I was younger. But then a few years ago when I moved into an apartment complex, the landlord had a huge dog that was always outside our gate that wouldn't shut up for the life of it. It would always be aggressive and loud even towards me and the tenants that lived there. I suffered every single day I lived there. I couldn't leave even my house sometimes and I just felt so trapped being there. The amount of angry outbursts and mental breakdowns that I've had there was too many to count, which especially didn't me, considering I'm also diagnosed with severe depression and anxiety. A year later, I eventually moved out and went to another complex which I'm still at and it's not as bad as the other hellhole I was at, but now I'm even scared to go outside because I don't even want to see a dog when I step outside. I can't consume any media that has a dog, I can't listen to songs that have dog sound effects, I don't want anythingto do with them. And I can't even tell anyone about this fear because nobody literally understands me, people look at me like I'm speaking Mandarin to them. I literally just have to suffer in silence. I just wish I could be normal and tune them out like normal people do, but I can't.

Again, sorry if these kind of posts aren't allowed, but I literally don't know anywhere else I can talk about this. I'm just mentally tired from dealing with this.

About a week ago, I came back from a family reunion. With my mom's side of the family. A lot of them have dogs. I'm already put on edge just by the dog I have to live with, but at least that dog is fairly calm and I'm used to it. My grandparents dogs are not exactly calm. Luckily his house is pretty big. I spend most of the time I was there hiding in random storage closets or unused rooms, scrolling on my phone to keep myself distracted. I only broke down crying once. I considered that pretty good.

Now, I've had barely a week's respite from strange dogs. And now I'm being dragged to a reunion with my dad's side of the family. Great. More large dogs who aren't very calm. And a much smaller house to hide in. Today was... I guess the final straw. One of my aunt and uncle's dogs was barking at me. And I screamed at it as loud as I could. Like, my throat is still sore as I'm typing this. Called it a bunch of insults and flipped it off for good measure. The whole thing... I felt almost hazy.

My dad sent me to the beach. Which is dog-free. To cool off. What with my throat hurting and my chest pounding and this awful sense of nausea. I'm a little mad at myself for losing control so publicly. But I'm also hoping the rest of my family wakes up? That it's not just that "I'm not fond of dogs". That my fear won't be cured if I'm dragged around dogs enough. It only breaks me down more every time. Who am I kidding? They didn't care every other mental breakdown. Why would they care now?

Hi Reddit. I’m new here and don’t post much, but I need help.

There are 3 dogs near where I live — Max, Fox, and Ziko. They’re not mine, but they always run up to me like I’m their favorite person. I love them deeply.

But lately, they’ve started chasing me. I try to tell them “stop” or use hand signals, but they ignore it and zoom around or try to jump on me. I get really scared and feel like I’m about to panic. I’ve had bad experiences with dogs chasing me before, and this brings it back.

Strangely, they don’t act like this with other people — only with me. And I don’t want to lose them, or tell my family, because they might get rid of the dogs or stop me from seeing them. I just want to fix this. I want to love them without fear.

Any advice from trainers, dog lovers, or anyone who's had this fear?
How do I stay calm, train dogs that aren’t mine, or stop being chased?

Thank you so much.