Dogs and I don’t get along.
I fear them, they know it yet they keep coming at me. But today, I walk around my neighborhood in Cambridge, (MA) snapping photos of dogs for this blog – “How I’ve fixed my fear of dogs!”
Our neighbors are very friendly, and so are their dogs. We are in openly public space, and these dogs don’t seem to have a “turf” issue or aggressive posture to lunge at me. They also seem well-trained and civil. It could be that they’re physically restrained – on a leash or gagged in their mouth. But they were not always that way in my experiences.
Before today, I had been bitten once in the leg by a street dog when I was a teenager in Hong Kong. The injury was minor, but the shock left a deep wound in my psyche against dogs.
Since moving to America, I’ve had numerous nightmarish experiences with dogs whenever I walked into a friend or a relative’s home in America. They’d run up to me, rush to lick my legs, sniff my private parts. They’d always go right at my body parts with such brute force that it’s not only unpleasant, it is downright offensive.
“Don’t worry. They’re just being friendly.” My cousin would say casually.
“They don’t bite. They just want to get to know you.” My cousin’s husband would add.
That was easy for them to say, but that sort of reason never soothed my body. I felt nervous. My tense relationship with dogs had come between me and my loved ones in America because they love dogs, and I don’t. I still remember my father’s brother, whom I call uncle Al once called me “sheltered” because of my extreme phobia of dogs – that was when I first came to America. He was right, I was very sheltered indeed.
I saw dogs’ head-on rush into me as a violation and their behavior predatory. I suppose they may also have viewed me as potentially dangerous because I am in their space. And that’s the problem. Space.
But my view of dogs drastically changed last Saturday.
I was reading at a desk inside the Cambridge Public Library next to a beautiful green quad – big and lush. Suddenly, I noticed a rapid running movement of animals off a corner of my eye. I turned my head and saw three dogs – Big, medium and tiny – running wild, slamming into each other’s belly or rolling over one another’s back. Sitting in a calm and quiet corner of the library looking out, I sensed no fear. In fact, I felt filled with bliss. These dogs’ total lack of inhibition, absolute oblivion to their environment and owners, and complete immersion into one another, moved me profoundly. It dawned on me that they were like children – innocently carefree and purely playful. Their active pursuit of fun and boundless exuberance of energy immediately lifted my spirit. It was like a shot of adrenaline. I fell in love with their nature and felt no more fear of them.
In that instant, my mind traveled back to my hometown where my fear of dogs began.
Growing up in Hong Kong, my mother told us (my older brother and I) since we were 5 and 7 years old that we would not get a pet. Our tiny two bedroom apartment was barely big enough for our family of four, let alone “a wild animal” she would say. We were forbidden to touch stray dogs on the streets because we could catch rabies or get bitten. None of our neighbors or friends could afford to keep a pet at home because space was scarce. There were no parks that allowed dogs and children to be in the same spot. Dogs were not valued. They were despised and deemed dangerous.
The social and environmental conditions where I was brought up definitely form the foundation of my fear of dogs. My own bad experiences with dogs that inadvertently prey on the sensitive parts of my body whenever we come into a close encounter or eye contact have led me to conclude that they were predators – mean and nasty. I don’t think I have completely erased that kind of thinking after last Saturday morning. Some dogs are mean, nasty and moody. But I now see my own desire to be wild, free and carefree in a similar spirit as those big, medium and tiny dogs outside Cambridge Public Library – given the space and time.
Perhaps, that’s how I have come to fix my fear of dogs by focusing on that deeper level that connects us living creatives – human and animals alike – as a free spirit chasing to find moments of fun and happiness however fleeting as we run into and roll over one another.