Thinking The Dog Days Are Over

I never grew up with a dog.

When I was very little, all I wanted was a little puppy. A bea-go to be exact. I did all the research, (as in what type of dog I thought was the cutest) and thought this beagle-golden retriever mix would be the perfect addition to our household.

This dream lingered at the back of my mind; until the trip to Pennsylvania.

My best preschool friend moved all the way to Pennsylvania before we started kindergarten. This felt like she moved across the country. Technically, it was only a 4-hour drive, but to a little kid who doesn’t yet have a grasp on time, it was an eternity.

The week before the start of school, we trudged up the long drive to her house. Arriving after dusk, all the streets were pitch black, it was almost impossible to see the street signs. My mom drove slowly while my dad had the map in hand, squinting his eyes to see where we should turn.

I remember all of this because there was no way I was going to sleep, not when I haven’t seen Miranda in 5 weeks. Again, the concept of time was not fully-formed and this also felt like an eternity.

We parked in the driveway, my sisters and I jumped out of the car and waited by the doorstep for our parents to catch up. The doorbell rang and we heard a new addition to Miranda’s family: a dog. I was already excited to see Miranda, now I get to meet her new puppy too?

The dog was what gen-z would call a “crusty white dog,” and with the pristine picture of a bea-go in my mind, I didn’t think the dog was very cute…but it was still a dog nonetheless, something I’ve been wanting for a while.

Miranda’s parents open the door and immediately I am the first one to pet Scout, the white dog. I had to show my parents I am perfectly capable of caring for a pet. The fish at home wasn’t enough anymore, this was my chance to show that we should get a puppy.

Obviously, I was overlooking the horrible allergies my mom and sister had. And I was also overlooking my younger sister's terrible fear of dogs. Partially because I thought she would be able to break the fear if we had one in our home and trained it well, but also because I couldn’t understand how someone could be afraid of something so cute.

I would come to understand her fear on this trip.

It was so late already that we had to immediately go to bed.

The next day, we were on the couch watching Felicity, The American Girl Doll Movie–the one with Shailene Woodley (I only found this out recently, and when I did I couldn’t believe that the actress who was responsible for my pre-teen divergent obsession was also the same actress as my childhood American Girl Doll obsession). Shailene Woodley was up on a horse galloping through the grass when Scout came running in the living room at full speed.

Miranda and I were laughing so hard until I saw something I had never seen before.

The inside of Scout’s ear.

When he was running, he twisted his head to the left and his ear flopped back where the inside twists of his ear gaped open.

This may seem trivial and silly, and yes maybe it is, but I was terrified, disgusted even. It was like I saw something I never should have seen and I never wanted to see it again. Maybe for a different reason than her, I finally understood my sister because I too was now afraid of dogs. Particularly the inside of a dog’s ear which made me afraid of the whole thing.

The whole concept of having a dog as a pet had vanished, the thought of me playing outside with one again diminished in a second because I never wanted to see a dog run and have its ear flopped back and distorted.

Dogs became a new anxiety and I avoided Scout for the rest of the trip.

I jumped away from every dog I saw, hoped that my friends would keep them apart from me, and pretended like I had always had this fear.

This remained until a new neighbor moved into the house to the right of us when I was in third grade.

The parents had a girl in between me and my younger sister, and they had a puppy.

A puppy that was very similar looking to Scout, but was gray and had a scrunched face. The first time I met her, I thought it was super cute, but I still didn’t want to get near it. I knew that if she would come running towards me, her ear might flop to the side and reveal the twisty grotesque maze that I never wanted to see. Her ears were even floppier than Scout’s, so I knew it was even riskier.

It was no easy feat to avoid eye contact with a dog that was constantly around. I liked my neighbor, so I didn’t want to let her dog get in the way of our friendship but I was scared. How can someone be so scared of something so simple and anatomical? Anxiety. That was basically it. It was something I knew I had to overcome because it was an irrational fear, an abnormal reason for being scared of a dog. Getting bitten? Sure, that’s realistic. But that’s not what I was afraid of.

So little by little, I forced myself to make contact with Lily.

At first, it was watching my neighbor play with her, making sure to close my eyes any time I saw her ears defy gravity. Then, I pet her–just a quick pat on the back. I remember Lily’s fur was much softer than Scout’s, it was so fluffy that I wanted to pet her again. So I did. I was petting a dog for more than a second and was happy. I was still scared that I would see her ear, but I was less afraid.

Finally, one day my neighbor asked if I wanted to pick Lily up. I was already letting her carefully crawl over me, and it wasn’t a big step since she was in my lap. And so I did. I grabbed onto Lily and held her like a little baby. For the first time, I felt calm while being with a dog. It was almost as if Lily had absorbed all of my fear in that hug and reminded me of what I used to love. Maybe I couldn’t quite put it into words, but at that moment I recognized how irrational my fear was and was able to enjoy the presence of dogs without worrying about the exposure of the inside of their ears.

This is something that I look back on and laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. But if I hadn’t taken this anxiety seriously, I wouldn’t have overcome it. If someone had told me, “you don’t need to be afraid of dog ears, that’s weird” I maybe would have always had this odd fear. I’m glad no one minimized my feelings as such.

Although Lily was just a neighbor’s pet, it almost felt like she was partly my own. Recognizing, understanding, and overcoming anxieties is a big task for a little girl, but with the help of Lily, I checked one box off the list.