(Written by a friend from Shanghai)
Last winter I visited my daughter in Austin, and when I arrived, her little dog was standing just inside the door. He was very quiet, and I was surprised, as I’d always heard him barking in the background when we talked on the telephone. When I entered, he looked at me as if we were old friends. He must have liked me, as he jumped up and wanted to lick my hand right away. It was a nice welcome. I wasn’t a bit afraid I crouched down to talk to him.
As I petted him, I couldn’t help but think that it was strange that I could do it. I’d never had a pet of my own because I’ve always been a little afraid of animals – especially dogs.
I remembered that when I was little, my mother repeated a story about someone who had been bitten by a mad dog. Her terrible stories got rooted in my mind even though I learned later that there are very few rabid dogs. When I heard a dog barking, I was always afraid of being bitten.
If I saw a big dog on the street, I would cross to the other side to avoid it. I didn’t want to have any problems with them.
In the winter of 1990, my husband and I had visited our daughter in Dallas, and practically every day we’d take a walk around the neighborhood with our grandson in a stroller. As we made a turn toward home on one of those days, we suddenly discovered that a big dog was following us.
I immediately became frightened and started pushing the stroller as fast as I could. The dog was probably interested in playing, as it ran back and forth in front of the stroller, and our grandson was happy to watch him, but I wanted to find a way to get away from him.
My husband had worried that the dog would bite the boy, and waved his hands to get him to leave, but he continued to caper around the stroller. Then my husband had taken off his scarf and began hitting the dog with it. That didn’t change anything; the dog continued to follow us.
We had felt that we needed someone to help us, but didn’t know the word for help in English, and there was no one else on the street. We finally decided to cut through people’s driveways to shorten the trip back home. I remember walking quickly with my husband following me, and the dog right behind us.
As we passed one of the houses, a dog inside began to bark, as he wanted to be outside playing with the dog near us. The dog in the house became so excited that he broke their Venetian blinds. All the noise he made frightened me, and nobody came out of the house to help. I pushed the stroller faster, was actually running down the street to get home quickly. We were fortunate that we didn’t have to go far.
When we went inside, the dog left. Our daughter was surprised at how uncomfortable we seemed to be, as we told her the story, but our grandson thought it had been great fun. In comforting us, we had been told that we shouldn’t have hit the dog because they rarely bite people, and they’re very fond of children.
I was starting to like dogs a little, as we had been told that we shouldn’t fear them, that they like to play with people – especially children.
Later that year, I’d had another experience with dogs. We had visited Los Angeles on the way home to Shanghai. Our son-in-law was studying in a university there and lived in a house with a nice old landlord who invited us to live in his house for a week.
He had two big dogs, and gave them vitamins and other medicine every day, and to be friendly, he asked me to feed them the way he did it. The pills had to be placed in an open palm and offered to the dogs who would then lick them off. I wanted to be a good sport so I didn’t tell him how frightened I was of dogs; I fed them as if I weren’t concerned.
One day he had wanted to show us the other house that he owned. He planned to use two cars to get us there and he was taking the two dogs along for the ride in his car. He asked me to sit in his car with the dogs, so that he could talk about American life. I sat beside him in the front seat, and the dogs were in back.
During the ride, however, they put their heads over the back of the front seat, and were breathing heavily with open mouths and their tongues jutting out. It nearly frightened the daylights out of me. I had no choice but to move close to the door, and was fortunate that the trip took only a few minutes.
When we returned home, I got in the car with my husband and my son-in-law, and I told them about the two dogs hanging their heads into the front seat in the landlord’s car. I hadn’t told the landlord how frightening that was so he probably thought I liked dogs. Maybe I was a little less scared than before.
Several years later, I lived with our daughter and son-in-law in Portland, and one of our American friends asked if we’d take care of their dog while they took a 3-day trip. I agreed to do it even though I knew that our son-in-law couldn’t help if I ran into trouble, as he was going to be in Los Angeles those three days. The friend said that the dog could live in the garden, and all we’d have to do would be to put food and water on the deck for him twice a day.
It was a big dog, and it seemed sad that he would have to live outside all by himself for those three days. I watched him through the window from time to time that first day, and when evening came, I followed the instructions and put his food and water on the deck. There were no problems, and I began to relax.
When I opened the door to the deck the next morning, the dog came running. I was worried that he would enter the house, so I partially closed the door, and stretched out my arm to put the food and water on the deck. The dog stood there and looked at me. I wasn’t afraid, and didn’t understand what he wanted.
I closed the door, but continued to stand there – looking at him through the window – and when he saw me, he began barking and jumping and ran toward the door. I thought that perhaps he wanted to play, but I was afraid of him, and didn’t open the door.
Later that afternoon, I needed to feed the dog again, and when I walked toward the door, he was already waiting outside. I didn’t know how I could get him away from the door so that I could open it to put out the food and water. While thinking about it, he looked at me, and barked and jumped happily, and at that moment, the front door bell rang. I hurried to open the door and was delighted to see my son and his wife. It was as if God had sent angels to help solve my problem.
I told them about the dog, and my daughter-in-law immediately went to the garden to play with it. The two of them got along beautifully and she took him for a walk. The two of them had come from Seattle for a visit, as they had known we were taking care of the dog, and they wanted to help us. I told him that I had no reason to be afraid of dogs, and that I hoped I would gradually become accustomed to them.
Those stories tell you what I was thinking as I petted my daughter’s little dog in Austin last winter. During that visit, I actually became quite friendly with him, as he’d always sit on the floor beside me when we were in the kitchen. Sometimes he even sat on my lap. It was my first experience of really liking a dog.
The week before I left there, I had a virus on my computer, and my grandson removed it for me. When I started using the computer again, the light grew dim and my grandson found that the dog had bitten the electrical cord. I continued to use the computer as it had a battery, but we put the cord on a chair so that the dog wouldn’t bite it again.
A few minutes later, we discovered that the dog had the cord in his mouth again, and this time the wired had been severed. The next day the dog didn’t act the way he usually did. We felt that he must be sick, as he had no appetite. We didn’t think he’d gotten an electric shock, but worried that the wrapping around the wire might have been poisonous. Fortunately, the dog was much better the following day.
I’m happy that I’ve finally overcome my fear of dogs. I know I have, as the night before I left Austin I held my daughter’s little dog tightly – just as if he were my baby.
