Scared Of Dogs – Maybe Not

Our youngest daughter (Daughter 2) has, for no particular reason, been scared of dogs. No dog has ever barked at her, nipped, growled or ran at her – she just has no confidence around them. Sometimes she’ll be okay and maybe even stroke one but other times she’ll go into panic mode. This was one of the reasons why we got Archie – to help her overcome her fear of dogs.

When Archie first arrived, she’d happily stroke him when me or Sarah held him but we noticed that she was spending more time in her bedroom or in the lounge with the door closed. But over this first week, with some coaxing and supervision we’ve made great progress.

But this sunny Easter Saturday (is there such a day?) we seem to have had a breakthrough. Archie the dog and Daughter 2 have spent a fair bit of time together in the garden playing and now Daughter 2 seems to have a new best friend. She’s still very wary when Archie jumps up at her but we’ve told her not to run away because dogs think you’re playing with them when you do that. We’ve told her to say no Archie, get down Archie and we’ll stop him from doing it. He takes no notice of this instruction (yet) of course, but it seems to give our daughter a little more confidence. Every little helps!