Dog anxiety. How nicely say it or do I pretend?

[ColinRobinsonsfamiliar]

Was badly bitten as a child.
I have full on sweaty palms, palpitations beating so hard it affects my breathing, churning stomach and cannot focus on anything but where the dog is if I see one in the street I have to cross over, it’s bad.

So on a zoom work call today, the other person opens up their screen with a dog on their lap, full face in the camera.

Then tells me that there are 5 in the office around them.

I was so shocked. I blurted out that I have a “bit of a phobia of dogs”, to which they looked horrified and put the dog down.

I know it’s absolutely nuts. I have avoided dogs really well forever so it’s not generally an issue.
Dog lovers ALWAYS without fail try to persuade me that theirs is a sweetheart and “as soft as anything”. It does not matter, I really cannot cope with them.

So to spare dog owners feelings because I am completely unreasonable with this, do I grin, gritted teeth and pretend I’m ok, or can you suggest a really nice way of either changing the subject or politely broaching this fear/terror I have with doting dog owners.

Thank You. .

I have a dog, I can completely understand that a close up like that on a WORK call when you would not anticipate seeing a dog would massively trigger you

Reckon DH would run if it was close up of a massive spider as he's terrified of them and worked so hard to tolerate little ones.

I see you've brought some of the usual tolerant dog lovers out of the woodwork again, just waiting for a dog thread to jump on so they can post about how accepting they are of people who don't like dogs 🙄

I don't see why you shouldn't say you aren't ok with something rather than try and pretend - most people would be understanding about a phobia. As others have suggested though, it would probably be a good idea to try something to cure the phobia - dogs are kind of everywhere you look these days.

😂

I never notice posters names but yours I do for some reason. Do you post a lot of threads about all sorts of happenings?

Just ignore dogs over zoom. There's not a lot else to say really

I do. I’ve been on mn for nearly 18 years.

I like to chat. Not really anyone to talk to other than boring my dh to death in RL.

Well that's fair enough then 😀

I think try and totally ignore the dog or pretend your camera is broken!

🤣 just looked back, the last one I started was about how annoyed I am at pissing myself every time I cough when I had a really bad cough… that got LOADS of responses and people talking.

I’m so classy.

I think an extreme phobia like that is worth addressing professionally, as it could prove highly restrictive. Dogs as pets are of course very common so you must spend a fair amount of time in distress when you leave the house, and it's more than likely that at some point you'll encounter a guide dog or other working dog (e.g sniffer security dogs) at some point.

I feel the same about spiders we have repellent spray I've literally stuck a coloured sticker over the picture of the spider because it freaks me out

It's embarrassing 😳

A dog on a work call??? NO! Everyone here saying it's acceptable, or it's nice to see colleague's pets on calls, are insane and you need to give your heads a wobble. No one gives a shit about your darling pet and no one is impressed with how your dog/cat/whatever is conveniently chilling out on the sofa.

Jesus I can't believe what I'm reading here, I love dogs but if one were to appear on one of my work calls I would instantly judge the other person, it's so inappropriate!

OP - my DP has a massive fear of dogs to the point my family dog (at my mums house) doesn't even approach him anymore. Before I met him I didn't get it but I do now, your feelings are totally valid and the person on your work call with a dog on display was a twat!

I think what you said was absolutely fine OP.

Like PPs have said, plenty of people would object if work zoom calls started with surprise, unsolicited videos of tarantulas or snakes.

You don't have to apologise for existing. Your colleague wasn't massively inconvenienced by putting the dog down (👇 not 💀😂). Imagine you had a brand new pet spider. Wouldn't you rather know about your colleague's fear of them and make a very minor adjustment of not showing them your pet, rather than not know and unwittingly cause them distress?

Oh give over, if we were on a Teams call whilst I was sitting at my dining table on my laptop and you could see my dog or cats fast asleep on the sofa on the other side of the room (where they would ordinarily be if I wasn’t on a Teams call), not interacting with them in any way or having them actively feature in the call at all, you’d honestly think I was behaving unprofessionally/inappropriately? Would you prefer me to cast them all out of the room lest anyone catch a glimpse of them?

OP, you had some very unkind replies here.
First, let me say I absolutely adore dogs, the more, the better.
But I think it's unprofessional to have them on work meetings. Although the person did remove the dog.
My dogs are not even in my office if I have calls because they can be disruptive if there's someone at the door for example, or they could make weird noises (scratch, snore, fart whatever).
I can also understand your fear of dogs to some extent if I think of snakes or crocodiles which are scary to me (I have been closed to these but I'm still very scared of them and would not want them popping up on my screen without warning.)
You do not need to change what you do. As a dog owner, I'd want to know, so that I do not expose you to my dogs and be the cause of making you feel very, very, very uncomfortable and scared. What normal person wants to hurt another human being like that?! Also, I'm not a therapist and wouldn't claim to know how to help you and might cause more hurt by insisting you get to know my dogs.

@WetBandits yes I would absolutely think you were unprofessional. Teams backgrounds are there for a reason, to make it look like you're in a work environment. There are plenty to chose from, you can even upload your own if you like... as long as it's not a picture of your pets 🙄

I have a dog OP. I love her. I wouldn’t bat an eyelid if you said you had a phobia of dogs and would just make sure she was never on the screen again.