Feel bad about this, but didnt know what else to do at the time, wwyd?

[laloony]

firstly i cant begin to explain to you how terrified of dogs i am. big, small, it doesnt matter, i feel sick, shake and feel terror utter utter terror if one comes near me.
i cross the road if i see one, always been like this.
so pils have one.

went to pick ds & dh up from there last week, knocked on the door, and it began to bark, its head off.
sweats started, stomach churned, began to shake.
dh answered the door with the dog behind his legs barking like mad. he turned a held the dog by its collar but it jsut went on and on barking.
i could not go round it without it touching me as it and dh were blocking the doorway. so it told him i would wait int he car.

i dont got to pils for many reasons, but one of which is the dog.
so mil came out and although was nice, was obviously gobsmacked that i wouldnt come in the house,
i appologised and explained, but she clearly wasnt happy.
i just cant be in a room with a dog, i cant.
a room with pil & a dog....then hell no, but they dont get it.feel a bit bad about it.

Oh i know. I try my very very best to not let them see my fears. I would hate for him to be like this. thankfully he seems to quite like dogs. LOVES pils dog.

Starbucks, for a moment I couldn't work out what you were on about. Then I re-read the posts and saw your own, which I'd previously skimmed over. My remark wasn't aimed at you or anyone inparticular as it happens, but now that you mention it, imho AND in my EXPERIENCE not only as a former SBT X owner and SBT fosterer but also as a rescuer who has probably handled more SBTs than the very vast majority of people on this entire forum, your comment IS ignorant.

It's the kind of remark which encourages all manner of rejection of the breed and an attitude which is partially responsible for the disgracefully enormous annual number of deaths in pounds of perfectly healthy dogs who have done nothing to deserve it.

YANBU, if you are scared then you are scared. It's only a dog and it won't mind going in the back garden for half hour while you are there. And just say you've only just had a cuppa if they offer you one again.

If they won't put the dog out so you can go in for a bit then they ABU.

Valhalla, what do you mean by 'all manner of rejection of the breed'?

If I see a Staffie I avoid them. They are scary looking things and you can't deny the media portrays them as lethal when they attack.

Fair or not, who would risk a dog like that running around one's child?

Laloony and Starbuck- I'm with you on this. There are obviously well informed dog lovers here. But there are also people like me who are also scared of dogs.

We cannot tell at a glance whether your furry darling is a fierce untrained biter of gentlefolk or a delightful family pet.

A barking dog would not make me eager to enter a house. When my cousin had 2 German Shepherds, I would stay in the car until she had put them in their room.

YANBU- we don't all love dogs. Laloony- get DH to explain or have PILs visit you in small doses sans dog.

"Valhalla, what do you mean by 'all manner of rejection of the breed'?

If I see a Staffie I avoid them. They are scary looking things and you can't deny the media portrays them as lethal when they attack.

Fair or not, who would risk a dog like that running around one's child?"

I mean rejection by irresponsible owners and by potential dog adopters based on sensationalist reporting in the media, inaccurate information, anecdotal "evidence", scare stories and all these being backed up by those who perpetrate the myth that all SBTs as dangerous and to be avoided based on these factors and similar ones.

SBT's are NOT "scary looking things". They may be so in your opinion but that alone does not make them scary looking things. And yes, you have made precisely the point which I am trying to, the media DOES portray SBTs as lethal, which is as intelligent as portraying men as lethal following a murder by one human male.

"Who would risk a dog like that running around one's child?"

WHAT??? A dog like what? A dog that is in YOUR opinion "scary looking"?
A dog which has done nothing wrong but whose entire breed you're discriminating against?

F(Dogs)S please judge on a dog by dog, case by case basis and blame the deed, not the breed.

Nesta, as the owner of 2 GSDs and another large breed myself, if someone came to visit me and chose to stay in their car until I put my dogs out of their way (unless they were genuinely phobic like the OP or allergic), they had best bring their sleeping bag because they'd have a bloody long wait.

Until Hell freezes over comes to mind... !

LaLoony, are the other issues/concerns you have with your PIL able to be addressed and is the dog problem the main one? I just get the impression that yours isn't an entirely comfortable relationship overall.

Good on you for not transferring your fears to your son. I'm petrified of blood tests and needles and have been less good at hiding it.

Valhalla - it's not because it's a staffie! We have had them before and a rotweiller and have been absolutely fine!

This staffie however has a totally different personality and I just don't trust him! He gets overly excited - jumps on people and floored my poor elderly nan! The dog is bloody untrainable - all my parents other dogs, whilst j was growing up were very well trained and never an issue!

My child is very precious to me! And I will not take any chances with her and that dog! So it's not being ignorant, as you put it! It's assessing an individual situation!

I have a very scary looking dog who weights about 12 stone. I realise that just because he looks scary he actually poses no more risk to my dc than my other dog who doesnt look in the slightest bit scary.

I am very careful where I walk with my dogs as I realise people are and will be scared by my scary looking one. I have to say though that people who know dogs and breeds are rarely scared of my scary looking dog and he gets made a fuss of on walks.

firsttimemum77 - we have relatives with a staffie who never walk it and havent trained or socialised it. We never take our dc there.

MEant to add it wouldnt matter to us what the breed was, we still wouldnt take the dc there.

Valhalla, if my cousin put her dog's feelings before mine, she wouldn't hear from me again. The dogs were quite happy in the large room where they sleep anyway whilst myself and several people visited.

My cousin was happy and willing to do this. Her dogs were fine. I was terrified, as was my Dad who was also in the car. I think when you are unwilling to slightly inconvenience a dog in favour of family visitors, then something is wrong. I get that you love and support dogs, but dare I open a can of worms- I think leaving a guest in a car in order to avoid inconveniencing a dog is a step too far.

Firsttimemum I have no issue with an individual assessment of a situation - as I said, blame the deed, not the breed. I wouldn't take your approach from what you've said but I understand why you do so.

It was your post which was placed before my original one and which I skimmed and later read, not Starbuck's, my mistake, sorry. So, it was you who I wasn't referring to in my criticism of the "all SBT are killers, won't let them near my precious Tarquin" brigade, IYSWIM. :) My comment was made purely as an aside and in general and I was trying to indicate the difference between the genuinely troubled by dogs and the bloody idiots who aren't worthy of a dog's time or mine!

Anyway, this isn't about SBTs vs other dogs....

laloony, If you try not to let your children see your fears, how exactly does that work, given that you need to cross the road when you see any size of dog, and do not go into PIL home? Doesn't add up to me. You have a phobia and need help if it is in anyway interferring with your daily life. In the future it may impinge on your childrens' social activities.

Nesta, tbh I prefer my dogs to my family so one who shared your view of GSDs would be fine by me!

I always take the view, except in cases of genuine and serious fear or allergy, that my dogs live here and visitors don't... they can go to their own homes if they don't agree with sharing a sofa with a Shep! After all, I don't much like other people's children but I don't ask anyone I visit to lock their kids in the garden for the duration of my stay! :o

I kinda chat (manically) and pretend to want to see something over the road.

he has never indicated that he knows i am frightened. But as i say, i rarely come into contact with dogs with him, im a driver and a cyclist, so not hanging around where dogs are...im off.

Ds goes to the ils with dh, i do stuff at home. Doesnt go often, they have no interst in us so we dont see them often. Spose thats where there is an issue. pil are uninterested in us or ds....not a problem though.

see i think thats where there becomes a line. dog owners dont see that there is a problem with thier dogs and there is no persuading them otherwise. they are part of the family and their home is thier home.

i am the opposite, i cannot for the life of me see why people would want to keep a dog for a million reasons, and there is no persuading me otherwise.
i just cannot understand it, so i understand why dog owners cannot understand my predicament.

So you have a massive phobia of dogs. Your DH presumably knows this, what with being you DH and everything, and he stands there holding a barking dog by the coller asking you to walk towards him and the dog to go in the house?

Is your husband a twat?

LOL! no he isnt a twat, he didnt realise the dog was there till it started.
by then i was a wreck, and fled to the car.
i hadnt text him as i had left my phone at home.
normally would have text to say i was waiting or coming to the door. he would have removed the dog before i got there.

think mil had made a pot of tea and had told him to tell me to come in for a brew.

bless him, defo NOT a twat my lovely hubby.

love that word though, its so delishiously descriptive. LOL

Crumbs, OP, I wasn't sure it was possible to "meet" someone even more afraid of dogs than me!! I completely understand what you mean. However, my PILs have a dog and that has helped me to a certain extent in terms of familiarisation, but, like you, still want to barf at the sight of dog hairs everywhere! Valhalla, genuine question - and I'm not trying to be facaetious (sp), cos you've given me useful advice before re dog fear - but you sound like you'd place a dog higher up in the pecking order than a human relative. Really??

juicy, yes. Sadly of the 3 members of my family I have never felt like that about, one, my Aunt, is 3.000 miles away and the other two are my beloved Grandparents, who are in a London cemetery much to my eternal grief and sorrow.

You wouldn't want to meet the rest of the buggers!

My DP, who doesn't live with me, is scared of dogs, especially German Sheps, of which I have two. I have never removed the dogs for his sake and neither would I. His is a fear not a phobia and he has got used to my 3 dogs and trusts me to be able to handle my dogs competently.

Juicy, PS, those three people I just wrote of - all three love/loved dogs and would be/would have been very happy in the company of mine.

Your dh or you should explain to PIL that you are completely phobic about dogs and cannot be in the same room with any dog. It just is not possible. You are ensuring dcs are not afraid, it's why you send them over, but this is a deep-seated fear. You do well to get out of the car and get to the door.

I am bird phobic, cannot stand flapping, bird's spindly legs or beaks and also feathers so, even as a dog lover (including SBTs), I completely understand your revulsion to dog hair. I don't want to like birds, it doesn't curb my life and don't want to invest time seeking CBT. Only you can decide whether your fear of dogs curbs your life detrimentally enough to want to do something about it.

So Valhalla, with the greatest respect ( and I can see you are a genuine expert), but how do you draw the line between a visitor with a fear and a visitor with a phobia? Do you diagnose the difference yourself and remove or not remove your dog accordingly?

I have a real fear of dogs and have been bitten by a King Charles Spaniel (I was no where near it, it ran up and bit me and ran away again) and growled at whilst alone with a 10 stone Rotti who I had gently stroked (working very hard to overcome my fear of him). I also can't walk past high wooden fences as I am afraid a dog will suddenly start barking aggressively at me (I think this happened when I was little)

Would you remove your dogs for someone like me or not unless I had actual panic attacks and cried?