Being scared of dogs: should owners take precautions?

Blueswan • 🏳️‍🌈 (Pan/demi, she/they) A smart feminist who writes, sews, cooks, etc. kundalini/Sikh follower, and hopefully successful college student. ADHD/anxiety

So I have anxiety and strange dogs raise it a little. I was living in a pet free dorm but someone needed a support dog. She’s okay and the dog was fine after a couple days (they did not like being stuck in the room at first and barked and scratched like crazy). This is also a very tiny dog.

Last week I went to the school queer tea and they had a small dog as well that kept barking at everything and jumping at people, which combined with the fact that I didn’t know half the the people and the space was very tiny. Once some people left and the dog had calmed a bit it was fine.

This just got me thinking, because though my slight aversion is manageable and temporary, there are people who have full blown phobia and I’ve seen very little accommodation or talk. An example of an accommodation could be training a dog that’s mean to be more social to stay quiet in a place until you know a person is okay interacting with them. Should that be required? In what ways would one do it?

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