Friend or a Foe!

Have you ever been in a housing society’s meeting? How’s the scene generally?

The other day we were having a General Body Meeting in our housing society. It was a typical meeting. But an extraordinary one. As there were a host of tricky issues raised. And then an elderly lady with lots of anxiety in her mind raised a point. She looked concerned and she mentioned that she was raising that point on behalf of all the senior citizens, especially elderly ladies.

She mentioned that most of the elderly ladies prefer to go for a walk within the premises of the building. But what was bothering them was the presence of dogs. The pet dogs of some of the owners would sometimes be let free, which probably terrified those people.

Hearing this concern, one of the dog owners(who’s otherwise an active member of the society and an ardent advocate to address many of the issues pertaining to the society), got up from the meeting saying - now it is almost the end of the meeting and murmuring:  there are important issues, and people are talking about trivial things like dogs, when actually the pet dogs are the sweetest things in the world.

Until a few years ago, I was neutral to the concept of pets. Neither for nor against. I must admit I have never been exposed to pets, so no knowledge of the subject. While I knew of some people who were panic stricken by the sight of pets for their own reasons or lack of it.

But the other side of the story was alien to me.

Until I met this dear friend who has his lovely adorable labrador. Being with him I have now realised why the dog is called man’s best friend.

Yet, I have this question now looming over me.

• Was the elderly lady justified in asking this question?
• Was the dog owner justified in saying that it was a trivial issue by concluding that the dog is as much a part of his family like his own kid? And pet dogs are friendly and don’t do any harm.
• But, will he ever understand the fears of the lady/ladies that raised the question?

While I agree to the fact that dogs are lovable ones, I thought of digging a little deeper on this subject.

The book Phobias defines a panic attack as "a sudden terror lasting at least a few minutes with typical manifestations of intense fear". These manifestations may include palpitations, sweating, trembling, difficulty breathing, the urge to escape, faintness or dizziness, dry mouth, nausea and/or several other symptoms. As with other specific phobias, people suffering from fear of dogs may display a wide range of these reactions when confronted with a live dog or even when thinking about or presented with an image (static or filmed) of a dog. Furthermore, classic avoidance behavior is also common and may include staying away from areas where dogs might be (i.e., a park), crossing the street to avoid a dog, or avoiding the homes of friends and/or family who own a dog.

Leading authors and scientists on the subject concluded that the age of onset for animal phobias is usually early childhood, between the ages of five and nine and additionally found dog phobia developing as late as age 20.  Also it is interesting to note that 75-90% who reported such animal fears were women.

Now getting back to our case, the ladies who raised the issue were largely in their 60s. I can imagine the deep rooted fears manifested over decades in them. Seems more complex than what it appears.  There are genetic and biological influences that make someone more likely to develop such fears and cannot be switched off easily.

Should the dog owner be a little more sensitive to such larger fears of people?

And the population of people who have these fears out number those own pets?

There are more than 25 million stray dogs in India. While there are animal activists now protecting the interests of stray dogs, how do we tackle this inherent psychological issue prevalent in a larger population of people who do not speak up, but sulk in their own fears.

I don’t have a conclusion yet on the subject. I seek your opinions!

Or should I say, who am I to conclude on this? As the well known idiom goes, “Let Sleeping Dogs Lie.”