The dog is one of the most popular pets in our society. Known as man’s best friend, dogs have lived with human beings for centuries, being faithful companions , but also helping them in day-to-day tasks, such as caring for livestock or protecting the home and the smallest of the home.

The fact of having a dog as a pet at home is not only due to areas such as livestock over the centuries, but also history has shown us that the most select royal houses around the world already had the company of this animal and they wanted to portray it in their paintings and other artistic forms as one more member of the family.

Fear of dogs: determining the problem

The dog is a faithful pet that, well taught, can be another member of the family, that gives a lot of love and company to its owners, as well as being an excellent help with the appropriate training for people who have physical and mental disabilities or good for carrying out tasks as important as finding missing persons or detecting drugs or weapons helping the police.

However, there are people who are afraid of these pets . Perhaps due to previous experiences or information that they have been able to obtain in other ways, they have developed a fear, more or less rational depending on the cases, towards these pets. For this reason, the fact that dogs are a very common companion animal can mean that their day-to-day life cannot develop normally , since every day there are more places that allow their access.

If you want to overcome your fear of dogs, it is best to contact a mental health professional. Depending on the degree of fear, the psychologist or psychiatrist will be able to determine the best way to treat it , thus being able to help the person overcome this fear and be able to live in places where dogs are found without having a bad time.

A slow but steady approach

When directed by the mental health professional, the person who is afraid of dogs may begin to gradually approach them. It is recommended that before taking this step, this person is informed about all the benefits for families and people have been able to adopt this pet. When you see that there are more cases in which dogs have had positive than negative behaviors , your fear will probably decrease.

In addition, it would also be advisable that people with dogs as pets could tell this person with fear about their own experience . Being irrational animals, unlike humans, they may sometimes have unexpected attitudes, but like all other animals, so the person who is afraid of them has to understand that their reactions will not be the same as people. That is why these pets must be educated well and never left unsupervised with children or the elderly. Thus, the person who is afraid of dogs should also understand that most of the time that a dog has a bad attitude it is due to the fact that it has not been properly educated by its owners.

The approach with the dogs should be gradual . It is better to start with the pet of a known person , which the owner is sure will not have an unexpected violent reaction. Little by little, the dog should be allowed to get closer to the person . Do not be in a hurry to overcome this fear, as everyone is usually irrational, but it is better to do things slowly and with a firm step.

As the person with a fear of dogs has experiences with different dogs and all of them are positive, little by little, they can lose their fear of this pet. It would be convenient then that you do not stop having contact with the dogs and that you go for a regular walk with someone who has one as a pet, they play together and those who are afraid of dogs never lower their guard, because they are animals after all. out and sometimes they may react in an unexpected way, which does not mean that they are going to hurt you or that you should be afraid of them again, but that you should treat them for what they are , pets, and do not confuse them with people, as they do to some.

In this way, with the help of a mental health professional, with patience and perseverance , always following the advice provided , the fear of dogs may dissipate so that the person who had it can lead a normal life, surrounded by them. animals and, who knows, maybe have one of them as a pet in the future.