Help

[Sr.Stephen]

I always wanted to get a dog. A german shepherd is the dog i really want to get. Well i asked my parents. My dad agreed on it but my mom is a different story. She told me when she was young she was bit by a dog when she was still living in China(the farm areas not the city). I been there and i know people there do not take the time to train their dogs. I been trying to tell her that it is probably because she made the dog mad or because the dog was not properly trained. She is not lisitening to me. i understand her fear. She would not even touch a dog now even if it is well trained. Do you guys have anything that i can do that can talk her into getting me a dog.

Thank you.

 

[Desteny]

How about talking her into fostering a dog from your local animal shelter? This worked for me...I kind of failed at the whole fostering thing... I fostered a Labrador pup and ended up keeping him...oh well...hope things work out for you.

 

[Renee750il]

My Mom was terrified of German Shepherds until she thought her Mother's Shepherd was going to chase Gulliver, our cat. Mom got after him, swinging a dishrag of all things, and when he turned around to play with her it completely won her over. We've had a German Shepherd in our home ever since.

Start bringing home (and reading) books about dogs in general and German Shepherds in particular and talking to your Mom about them. Show her the pictures, leave the books where she can see them and ask her to read some of them. Any of the books by the Monks of New Skete are great, and you can show her their website. They are famous for their work breeding and raising the German Shepherd.

Try to impress upon her how strong your desire is by your actions - not just begging (it's hard not to, I know), and see if you can get your Dad to help convince her. That much fear of dogs is unhealthy.

 

[Debi]

Wow..that's a tough one. My sister was bitten as a child..a terrible bite..and she, too, is so afraid of dogs now. If you maybe try to take her to a shelter and have her just be around the dogs......who knows, maybe she'll see how very much they need a home and love. Sometimes a dog just 'pops' out at you and tugs at your heart. Around here German Shepard dogs have received very bad press.......maybe she's just heard some bad things, too. Have her look on the internet and study the breed more. They are such loving, wonderful companions. All that said........I still cannot get my sis to go near my big, booby, loveable Hammie.

 

[RD]

I know quite a few people who are terrified of Dakota (I found it hilarious until I realized that they weren't joking.) Border Collies, for some reason, have a terrible reputation for being aggressive More people step away from my well-behaved BC than they do from a big snarling mastiff.
The only way, IMO, to convince them is to pretty much make them touch the dog. She's afraid of dogs, yes, but is she afraid of puppies too? If you bought a pup, I highly doubt that your mom would be scared of the tiny ball of fluff.
Show her a picture of a GSD pup, and ask her if she would want a dog like that. Sometimes that works.

 

[Renee750il]

Most of the time I feel very sorry for people who are afraid of dogs; they're missing out on so much, but I'll have to admit to being really mean about it once. I was working in sales and had a sales manager who was determined to send me door to door, even though the agreement with her boss (who hired me) was that I only went on appointment calls. She insisted, and got snarky about it one day, so I drove to a neighborhood where I knew there were LOTS of big dogs (as if riding with me wasn't bad enough!). She was absolutely petrified of any kind of dogs, so I dragged her right up the steps to a house with a humongous Rottweiler. He was just sitting there, grinning and wagging his tail, and she was shaking and in tears. So much for door to door. I suppose it really was an awful thing to do, but she was so incredibly hateful to everyone else working under her (the last girl who had to go out on calls with her came back in tears and quit) that to this day I don't feel the least bit guilty about it. She's not the kind of person who would ever admit to being wrong about anything or change her mind about anything, so it didn't make her fear of dogs any worse, but it did teach her to have a healthy respect for me! You should have seen her face while I was petting that big sweetheart and talking baby talk to him. And she couldn't fire me - I closed 95% of my sales!