The Fear of Dogs: Cynophobia

Introduction to Dog Phobias

The fear of dogs, or cynophobia, is a common and often debilitating animal phobia. Despite dogs frequently being celebrated as “man’s best friend,” for those with cynophobia, encountering a dog can trigger intense fear, panic attacks and the need to seek treatment. 

A dog phobia can significantly impact daily life, given just how prevalent dogs are in society. After all, there are an estimated 12 million dogs in UK alone, with around 35% of all households owning a dog!

How Dog Phobias Are Formed

Cynophobia often originates from a traumatic experience with a dog during childhood. Incidents such as being bitten, barked or growled at, or being accidentally knocked over by an overly affectionate and enthusiastic dog can create a fear trigger around dogs.

Additionally, animal phobias can be learned behaviours. A child may develop a fear of dogs by observing a parent or sibling’s fearful reaction. Children naturally look to their parents to understand what is safe and what is not. Therefore, if a parent displays fear around dogs, a child may subconsciously learn to view dogs as a threat and, consequently, develop that fear in themselves.

Our brain’s rapid formation of fear responses to perceived danger, a survival mechanism, can be maladaptive in modern life. Dogs no longer pose the same threat as their wild ancestors used to. However, a lot has changed and now dogs are a beloved pet and are found everywhere. Therefore, when we choose to avoid encounters with dogs it can severely get in the way of living a normal, healthy life.

The Impact of Having a Fear of Dogs

As mentioned, a dog phobia can be particularly challenging due to the sheer number of dogs we are likely to encounter on a day-to-day basis. Just going for a walk around the neighbourhood, through a park or along a main road without crossing paths with a dog can be quite a challenge. So, for those with a fear of dogs, this can lead to heightened anxiety and avoidance behaviours. This can significantly affect mental health and overall well-being.

How to Overcome a Fear of Dogs

At Creature Courage, we offer specialised treatments for animal phobias. Our approach helps our clients get over their fear of dogs with one day tailored private one-on-one therapy. We’ve adapted our successful methods from our internationally famous Spider Courage Experience, which treats arachnophobia, to help those with a dog phobia. We uniquely use a full range of proven phobia fighting techniques in one session. 

Therapeutic Techniques to Overcome the Fear of Dogs:

1. Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy (CBT): CBT helps individuals identify and challenge irrational fears and develop healthier thought patterns. Specific cognitive-behavioural therapy research into overcoming dog phobias in children has found lasting results in just one therapy session. We can vouch for this as this has been the case with our therapy at Creature Courage.
2. Exposure Therapy: Gradual, controlled exposure to dogs helps desensitise individuals to their fear. Understanding dogs and their behaviours can foster a sense of fascination and help to reduce fear. At Creature Courage, we strongly recommend exposure therapy, which allows you to interact with the animals in a controlled environment. You will always be supported by expert animal phobia specialists to help you face your fears in a gentle yet empowering way. The therapy is always led by you and is in your control at all times.
3. Hypnotherapy: This helps our clients to rewire their brains on the subconscious level. Hypnotherapy also helps our clients to have calmer and more effective exposure therapy.
4. NLP (Neuro-linguistic programming): Helps to create understanding around how we think and speak. NLP gives tools of how to change the stories ways tell ourselves and create new positive mindsets. We teach NLP techniques to condition your mind to be able access powerful positive emotions.
5. Art Therapy: We use imagination techniques and then make them more real through creating art. This extra cognitive step helps the mind make the memory of the meditation more vivid and lasting.
6. Knowledge: By gaining an improved understanding about dogs you can begin to build compassion and fascination which are powerful tools in defeating fear.

These are all techniques we combine together on our powerful one day sessions at Creature Courage.

Interesting Dog Facts to Help Alleviate Fear

Fear and fascination are processed in the same part of our brains so its very easy to switch fear into fascination. Also, being able to see an animal as vulnerable, useful, and capable of feeling fear itself changes perspectives. When you appreciate an animal and focus on their fear instead of your own, it makes the animal less scary.  Building fascination and compassion are powerful tools to transform your fear into courage.

Here are Some Intriguing Facts About Dogs

• How Our Lives Became Entwinned: We began to train and domesticate wolves over 15,000 years ago but new research suggests that this domestication came about by accident rather than to help us hunt, as is often believed. However, after this, dogs became specifically adapted to live life in relationship with us.
• Intelligence: The average dog is as intelligent as a two-year-old child and can understand up to 250 words. A Border Collie named Chaser recognized 1,022 words!
• Hearing: Dogs’ hearing is four times better than humans, allowing them to hear at frequencies we can’t hear at all!
• Sense of Smell: A dog’s sense of smell is anywhere between 1,000 to 10 million times more sensitive than that of humans (dependent upon the breed)
• Dogs can smell your feelings! Dogs can detect changes in human emotions through scent alone. This is all made possible by their olfactory cortex (the part of the brain associated with smell) being 40x larger than that of a human’s. When you’re afraid your breathing become faster but your sweat rate will also increase, therefore, changing the scent you give off. This is how dogs detect certain medical conditions and problems such as seizures, or hypoglycemia in diabetes.
• Health Benefits: Interacting with dogs can lower blood pressure and reduce stress. Furthermore, research suggests that a man is 3x more likely to receive a positive response from a woman if they have a dog in tow! ^[1]
• Science Fact: Did you know that dogs poo in alignment with the Earth’s magnetic field (no, I’d be a little worried if you did!)?
• Science Fiction: And finally, George Lucas modelled the Ewoks in Return of the Jedi after his family dog.

Myths About Dogs

Dispelling common myths is also important in helping to alleviate fear of dogs. For instance, understanding that dogs are not naturally aggressive but actually naturally friendly can change people’s perceptions. Dogs have been bred to adapt their entire lives around us. All they want to do is bond and please humans.

Many people believe that certain dog breeds are dangerous and aggressive but this is not actually true. Every dog is an individual, regardless of breed, and it’s how dogs are trained and cared for that determines behaviour more than anything else.

It is also believed that some dog breeds, such as Pit Bull Terriers and Rottweilers, have locking jaws. This means they will not let go if they bite you but this is also not true. No dog has jaws that can lock. Strong jaws, certainly, but not a physical capacity to ‘lock on’.

Many of these dog breeds are also falsely accused of being aggressive. Yet, studies show that Pit Bull Terriers are  affectionate companions and good family dogs, even, ranking higher in calmness and gentleness in tests than popular breeds such as Golden Retrievers, Corgis, and Beagles.

How Dogs are Helping Humans

This list is long when it comes to the ways that dogs are helping humans in positive ways. Some of the most common are the following:

• Medical Research
• Helping Soldiers on the Battlefield
• Autism Assistance Dogs
• Search and Rescue Dogs
• Guard Dogs: in a professional capacity and protective family pets providing protection from intruders and other threats
• Guide Dogs for the Blind
• Hearing Dogs for the Deaf
• Mobility Assistance Dogs
• Therapy Dogs
• Diabetes Alert Dogs
• Seizure Alert Dogs
• Mental Health Assistance Dogs/ Military Service Dogs
• Police and Firefighter Dogs

Creature Courage: The Expert Dog Phobia Specialist

Overcoming a fear of dogs (cynophobia) is possible with the right support and techniques. At Creature Courage, we will help you transform your fear into fascination and even build an affection for dogs. Uniquely, we use a range of different phobia-fighting techniques. Our holistic phobia treatment will not only help you overcome a fear of dogs but also help you improve overall mental health. We train all of our clients to build better habits around all anxiety triggers for lasting results and a better quality of life.

The best news is, it does not take weeks of expensive treatment to cure a dog phobia. In fact, most clients get over their fear of dogs in just one day using our powerful neuroscience based therapy.

If you’re struggling with a dog phobia, please, get in touch and learn more about our therapeutic options. A life free from the fear of dogs is only one phone call away.

Talk to us about your dog fears or to arrange a session

0800-970-4417

FAQs About Cynophobia (Fear of Dogs)

1. What is cynophobia? Cynophobia is the irrational fear of dogs. It can cause intense anxiety and panic at the sight or thought of a dog, significantly affecting someone’s daily life.

2. What causes cynophobia? A fear of dogs often stems from a traumatic experience with a dog, such as being bitten or knocked over. It can also develop from observing a family member’s fear of dogs, as children learn what is safe from how their parents react.

3. How common are dog phobias? Cynophobia is quite common, as dogs are one of the most popular pets worldwide, their widespread presence increases the likelihood of developing a fear due to frequent encounters.

4. How can cynophobia be treated? Having a fear fo dogs does not need to last forever, it can be treated through cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT), exposure therapy, and support groups. These methods help individuals challenge irrational fears, gradually desensitise to dogs, and receive emotional support.

5. Can learning about dogs help reduce my fear? Without doubt. Learning about dogs can help reduce fear by fostering fascination and understanding. Knowledge about dogs’ behaviour, intelligence, and benefits to humans can shift perceptions from fear to curiosity and appreciation.

REFERENCES:

1. Gray, P. B. et al. The Roles of Pet Dogs and Cats in the Human Courtship and Dating, Antrozoos (2015) Dec.9(28):4 pages 673-683 Available from: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08927936.2015.1064216