lost memory of terry

A memory unlocked the other day and it shocked me that I could forget something that was a huge part of my adolescent life; how terrified I was of dogs as a child. You probably imagine a child yelling or having some kind of outburst. No, I was so scared of any and all dogs, small or big. I’m talking about I would see a chihuahua walking down the street and I would jump on random people so that the chihuahua wouldn’t reach me. When I would go to any relative’s house and they owned a dog, I would not go into the house or even be near the door until I knew it was locked away.

Sadness I know.

I just genuinely felt that if they got to me, they wouldn’t stop.I imagined the dog would bite me and not stop, to the point they could kill me. Like I’ve always been a small girl. Of course this had to stem from somewhere, I just couldn’t recall.

The story is when I was three years old and during this time I lived with my the entire bloodline. My uncles owned a ptitbull ( who had a reputation of being the friendliest dog) which we usually kept in the backyard. One day, I went outside to play with my older sister, however she is an older sister and behaved like an older sibling would. I suppose she wanted to tease me, so she booked it to the back door to lock me out of the house. Naturally I ran after her to try to get to the door before she could switch the lock on, but my three year old legs couldn’t compete with her five year old speed. When we jolted so did Terry. He caught up to me way before my reach could touch the door handle. He bumped with his head and I fell to the floor, and then he started tugging on my clothes. He didn’t even bite me, but I was screaming my lungs (allegedly). From then on I just was terrified.

So, I would at all means find a way to get away from them. At the time I couldn’t believe so many people had dogs. I wanted to like them, I just was so over powered with fear that they would it literally paralyzed me. I eventually had to over come that fear.

I was about eleven when my younger sister ,who was around five at the time, she wanted a dog ( like most five year olds do). It triggered me that my parents actually bought her one. If i would have asked for one when I was five, it would have been immitietly shut down. There we were tho with an eleven year old that suffers of cynophobia in a house that now homes a puppy. Her name was Charlie. We had her for about a month before I asked them to hold her so I could pet her or just familiarize myself with Charlie.

Eventually, she was able to roam around without me being a problem.