My child is afraid of dogs - any tips?

[longforasnooze]

Hi, my nearly 4 year old has been afraid of dogs for as long as I can remember, though he has never had a bad experience, and certainly we are not fearful so no nervousness from me. He would cross the road when he saw one coming, leap into my arms if one got close and make a lot of fuss. Any kind or size of dog, doesn't matter, he panics. I know fear is irrational but....no reasoning will placate him.
My partner wanted a dog for his birthday and has always wanted one and we felt my son was now old enough to cope, and we decided to get a puppy so it would be totally unthreatening. We reasoned that once the unknown element was gone he would warm to it and think it was fun.
We are now 4 days into him being at home, he is a gentle and quiet little dog and very curious about the children. The baby doesn't care, but there is no improvement in my 4 year old, who will barely be in the same room as it, climbs up to the highest point from it if he is, and is generally being panicky and squealy. We have confined it to the kitchen so he feels safe in 'his' spaces, offered endless rewards for stroking it, or being friendly, struggling to find behaviour towards it we can praise, reasoned on all logical fronts, watched Scooby Doo!!
Does anyone have any experience of helping their child through their fear of dogs so they can become friends. I would hate the dog to get older, see his fear and then think he was the boss. Any helpful hints greatly appreciated.

[longforasnooze]

well you know those mass things that get organised where everyone meets at an agreed place and time to dance or something. I suppose it's not out of the question for those of us in a need of a group hug to meet and huddle like penguins somewhere!

[claw3]

ha ha! I get the feeling the group hug might turn into a bit of riot, best we dont!

[EdgarAllenSnow]

those big ol' cockroaches that used to be in my flat in Taiwan, that came out of nowhere, no thanks

ah mate...those are horrible -

i am normally of the 'live and let live' view but nothing short of death is suffucient for the taiwanese super-roach. espcially in flying season ewwwwww.........

why does it take half a can of raid to kill one??

i recognise this is irrational. they aren't going to kill me. no way.....

[EdgarAllenSnow]

was about the child offering the puppy his toy, ImSoNotTelling. This wasn't a case of cheerful friendship overtures -- seemed to me more a case of the DS knowing he's the lowest rung on the ladder and making a peace offering to the creature who is ahead of him

could there be any nice reason to post this completely deliberate and unpleasant misreading of this action?

personally i think as soon as you start making 'i feel sorry for her (well loved, fed and happy) dcs' noises you are basically saying 'i have lost the argument' because if you had a good argument, you'd have used it.

[longforasnooze]

I know, those flying ones, those really were the limit to my ability to be brave! Especially in my little Japanese style bedroom. Ripped those delicate little doors open at lightening speed and fled if one of those appeared.

I was a bleach fan myself. Found a tactic of spraying stuff all round the edges of a room then I'd come in to find them on their backs helpless as they should be.

Thanks for the support EAS, but think we'd better move on, it all got a little bit roll your sleeves up last night and don't want to go back there. There needs to be a nice debate going on on AIBU for us all to get on, any ideas?

[EdgarAllenSnow]

thinking of it is making me crave a jug of beer at '45s, a bop at Roxy's and a drunken breakfast of fried dumplings (yeah, even from 7-11 microwave section). you just can't get dumplings like that here...Wagamama do something similar but it's just not the same...

and then getting one of those super-toxic bug bombs from Welcome and nuking my humble residence so that every living thing in there perishes.

[longforasnooze]

I crave my scooter, a session at DV8, back on my scooter, and maybe a tapanaki, or however you spell that. I never went in for the dumplings, and particularly not the tea eggs and fluffy meat bread!!
I miss that freedom, mixed with a little adrenalin and the chance to nuke giant bugs.
Vivid flashbacks, good times.
We'd better stop, it's making me feel old!

[longforasnooze]

Was 45's that little place on Roosevelt, or was 45's that late night pit where you always got beer poured all over you?
If it was that little place, you must have worked for Shane?!

[EdgarAllenSnow]

45s was a larger place on Roosevelt, until half of it (the pool room) was demolished. To make way for more parking, Just like Joni said...

yes i worked for shame Shane!

Dv8 -i really liked DV8. was that the multi-split-level bar? fark. i know i went to DV8s, but am just not sure which one it was...and my brother has twocced my Taiwan guide. And there was that RnB club...was that DV8? i think it must have been.>grizzled old ex-expat gets misty<

scooters..i travelled to work on the back of my mates -never told my mum she'd have had a fit!

24 hour booze, food, living in the shadow of the worlds talest building, and such great times. why the buggery hell did i come back?

[longforasnooze]

Yes, the walk of Shane - Well what Brit didn't work for those treasures. Had a whale of a time too when I moved on from them.

DV8 had a downstairs yes with a pool table and lots of writing all over it. ~It's such a haze now I can't remember some places. They'd just demolished half of 45s when I got there I think.

I lived up in the mountains behind Shindian the last year and whirled down to work on my Suzuki at break neck pace every morning, there is seriously not a better way in the world to start your day, no wonder I was ready for those kids!

I had a great time, so much freedom, chaos, great people, trips to Hualian and Kenting but I was ready to go, it was time, 1 weeks holiday a year, stinky tofu, pigs being torched in side alleys...I think you lose all sense of reality if you don't move on....but I do miss it often.

[EdgarAllenSnow]

i went back on holiday end of 2005 to find all the usual suspects in 45s of a friday...living the eternal childhood possible for expat boys. 99s had had some kind of makeover, with big screens and less dinginess. Grandma nittis was the same as ever.........yummy. do you remember the place with enormous plastic dinosaurs? i couldn't find it again...

i loved hualien - the chihpen hot springs and ahhhhh walking up to lotus lake damn near killed me!

we drove to the gorge once with some tawanese friends...>emoticon of extreme fear< the coast road wa....erm..interesting!

wow.

living out in the sticks would have been nice - i used to visit a mate who lived in a 22-storey building neighbouring virgin forest - the view was fabtastic -

so much i never explored...i have to go back when the kidshave grown up! why do they take so long...

[longforasnooze]

Oooo Grandma Nitti's brilliant. I do not recall a place with dinosaurs, but I've been reminiscing with friends a lot lately and all sorts of things have come up that a don't remember, there was just so much going on.

Shhhh, one of the reasons I left was those very eternal childhoods you describe, it got a little painful. I know two girls who are still there after 8 years, that's tenacity.

I would love to go back, and to Indonesia, and take my children, but truth is now we have children when will we ever have money again, it'll be even worse when they are grown up. By the time we get there Taipei 101 will be low rise!!

[EdgarAllenSnow]

it is really likely we know some of the same people..i was there 2001/2...and there are those people everyone knows...

i think i quickly realised (working with the worlds cutest children! - my god weren't they smaller than mine..) i wanted to spawn, and wasn't going to meet a fellow spawner there.

Indonesia - just toured for a few weeks, but there were some great places outside the obvious tourist traps, which were ravaged by sudden poverty in the wake of the bali bombings. Never enough time.