Fear of Dogs: Trying to Make Dogs Ignore You? Here's What Might Be Getting in the Way
I’m a dog phobia therapist who has a dog and, therefore, I spend a lot of time watching how people behave around dogs.
Most of the time, my dog and I simply walk past people. Nobody pays us much attention, and we don't pay them much attention either.
Sometimes, I can see my dog is overexcited by the noise or the wind, so I’ll ask her to wait between my legs until people pass as I’m feeding her treats - because I know that so much as a lingering look from a passer-by and she’ll make it her life’s mission to befriend them.
In these cases, most people see what I’m doing, and might smile in passing at me or my dog, or simply walk past, completely ignoring us. Some will, of course, try to pet the cute golden retriever (although I don’t encourage it as she’ll get super excited and not want them to leave).
We’re not talking about those people, though. We’re talking about the opposite - the people who are clearly uncomfortable. And since you’re reading this, you might be one of them.
If you’re afraid of dogs, it’s completely understandable that you’ll try to avoid them as much as possible. But if you can’t, like if you need to get past one on a busy pavement, you might think that the safest way to do so is to keep your eyes on the dog the whole time you are close to them.
So you watch the dog carefully, maybe you even stop moving until they’re gone, frozen and staring, waiting for enough distance to be created before you can go about your way.
It makes sense - you want to make sure that the dog is ignoring you, that it’s not moving towards you, that you’re not taken by surprise.
The interesting thing is that, from where I'm standing with my dog, I often know what's about to happen before it does. Pretty often, the longer someone lingers and looks her way, the more interested she becomes.
So, while you're understandably monitoring the threat, your attention may be doing two things at once: making you more noticeable to some curious dogs, and keeping your own fear going.
Your mind is doing exactly what it’s supposed to do
If we zoom out a bit and think about the human brain's ultimate goal, we come back to the same conclusion time and time again: survival.
Our brains evolved to notice potential danger quickly. Thousands of years ago, that was incredibly useful. Today, immediate life-and-death threats are much rarer, but our brains haven't completely caught up. They're still biased towards spotting anything that might be dangerous.
If you have cynophobia, your brain is just applying that same survival system to dogs. It wants to know where they are at all times. It’s almost as though there’s this implicit rule that if you stop watching the dog, something bad will happen.
It gives you a sense of control and safety, which makes it feel useful. The problem is that the more your attention stays glued to the dog, the less opportunity your brain has to learn that you can be safe without monitoring it every second.
This also means that your behaviour starts to change in ways you might not even notice yourself. And those changes matter more than you might think.
Dogs are reading you just as much as you're reading them
Raise your hand if you’ve heard that “dogs can smell fear” - which, to someone with dog phobia, is about as helpful as having someone point a gun at you and tell you the only way to not get shot is to stop being afraid.
So let me clear something up - dogs do not smell fear. They have, however, evolved alongside humans, making them remarkably good at noticing our behaviour. They themselves also communicate largely through body language which we humans can get quite good at reading.
Going back to our example of stopping and staring at a dog on the pavement - dogs often notice this because it's different. Most people keep walking, glance briefly, or pay very little attention to them. Freezing, lingering, staring, or suddenly changing direction stands out much more.
A curious, more easily excitable, or more fearful dog may therefore want to investigate what’s going on. Some dogs may also interpret prolonged eye contact as an invitation to interact, while other, more fearful ones may experience it as threatening.
Now, hear me when I say that this doesn't mean you're causing dogs to approach you, or that every dog will respond this way. Dogs are individuals, just like people. But some of the behaviours anxiety naturally leads to can make you more noticeable than you intended.
The cycle keeps proving itself
If we follow this through, we can see how the cycle keeps building.
If you’ve had experiences where a dog has walked over to you while you were already monitoring it, your mind might have concluded something like "I knew it. Dogs always come to me."
From then on, evidence that this belief is true starts to stand out more. Your brain pays close attention every time a dog looks your way or comes over, while the countless dogs that don't approach barely register.
Over time, it can start to feel like dogs really are drawn to you.
And if that becomes your working assumption, it makes perfect sense that you'll also believe you need to stay on even higher alert the next time you see a dog. You'll monitor it more closely, stop more often, stare for longer, or make sudden movements - all in an attempt to keep yourself safe.
But, unfortunately, those are often the very behaviours that can make you more noticeable to some dogs, and the cycle goes on and on and on.
What actually helps
When we’re stuck in a vicious cycle, we need to learn how to break it. And there are a few points at which we can intervene here.
One is at the level of beliefs and rules - even just being aware that you might have a rule around needing to monitor dogs for safety can start to loosen it.
To help it loosen further, you might start testing out what happens when you don’t monitor dogs quite as much - which is where you might find that training your attention really helps. The idea here is not to force yourself to ignore dogs, but to behave a little more like other people: checking briefly where they are, then focusing on pretty much anything else - where you’re going, the view, other people. But you’re not trying to distract yourself either.
When you try this, you might feel a spike of anxiety - and that’s why knowing that this sensation isn’t dangerous in itself, and that you can absolutely handle it, as well as learning to feel it rather than fight it, can massively help (not to mention, it’s a super helpful transferable skill!).
Last but not least, learning to read dogs so you know the difference between curiosity, excitement, playfulness, stress, and genuine threat can help you generally manage situations more helpfully.
If this feels familiar, you’re not doing anything wrong
If you recognise yourself in this cycle of monitoring, worrying, and feeling like dogs are somehow more likely to approach you than everyone else - you’re not doing anything wrong.
This is exactly the kind of pattern that makes sense in anxiety and phobias. And the good news is, it’s something that can change.
If you’d like support with this, this is the kind of thing I help people with in therapy - using evidence-based approaches that help you learn to handle fear so it has much less of an impact on your life.
Hi, I’m Carina - an experienced, yet very human BABCP-accredited CBT therapist
I use evidence-based approaches - CBT and exposure therapy, alongside ACT and mindfulness - to help people build confidence around dogs in a way that actually feels doable and sustainable.
You can read more about how I approach therapy for dog phobia.
I also work with high-achievers with a fear of failure as my other speciality.
If you’re curious about whether working together might be helpful, I offer a free, no-pressure, initial chat. It would be great to meet you.
