Fear of Dogs (Cynophobia)

Cynophobia is a specific phobia. Cyno is the Greek word for ‘dog’ and phobia means ‘fear’. This phobia of dogs is learned in early childhood, due to an adverse experience with a dog. This fear then generalises to create a fear of all dogs.

Cynophobia is pronounced ‘Sin-o-phobia’.

Studies have shown that of all people who present with an animal phobia, Cynophobia is common to 36%.

Classical conditioning is an excellent way to help your dog overcome fears. Having a dog focus on a treat or something it likes, allows you to train it beyond the fear response. In humans however, classical conditioning and fear are divided into 2 broad categories, goal orientated (towards) and goal averse (away from). 

The towards pattern is seen as voluntary and the away from pattern as involuntary, we would argue that both have subconscious drivers. Beyond classical conditioning is a model referred to as Split-second Unlearning (SSU), this is a psychophysiological approach, currently under review 2021. SSU proposes that an adverse ‘first time’ experience creates a huge threat response, triggering the fight/flight/freeze system (FFFS). The overall information from the experience is then stored as a negative emotional memory image (EMI), inside the minds eye. At any point in the future, if something similar or equal to the original experience occurs, the EMI triggers the FFFS automatically. Split-second Learning can also take place if the first-time experience was positive and emotionally rewarding. Both examples give us an ‘away from’ and ‘toward’. The SSU model is as simplistic as it is profound. Clearing the negative EMI removes the FFFS response, allowing the body and mind to rebalance.

Laboratories that study anxiety disorders point towards cynophobia and other animal phobias as being commonplace. But we’ve got news for you, you don’t need to know how common it is, all you need to know is how to get rid of it. Your phobia isn’t hereditary, and it doesn’t run in your jeans. You are far more likely to have learned your fear of dogs from one particular incident when you were a child. You’ve been sat exploring the world around you and probably pestered a dog so that it barked, growled or otherwise told you to stop what you were doing. At the same time, your parent or care giver will have noticed this and leapt to your defence yelling at the dog and whisking you up in their arms. In this split second you’ve gone from being happy and curious to frightened and alarmed. Your amygdala, an area in your primitive brain, is engaging because your parent or care giver is panicking, this is the lesson you will learn today. From this point forward in time, whenever you see or hear a dog, your system will raise the alarm and panic will automatically set in. The strangest thing of all is that the dogs that you are currently afraid of aren’t ‘that’ original dog, they all have their own temperaments and their own personality. There are far more likely to lick you than bite you. The dog that is causing your irrational fear response is trapped as an emotional memory image deep inside your mind. The removal of this mental memory tag is absolutely critical to clearing your negative associations with other dogs.

It may sound strange but when you consider how common dogs are as family pets, then you may be able to understand how debilitating Cynophobia can be. If you have friends who own a dog then obviously you won’t be visiting them anytime soon, if your neighbours have a dog then you’ll even avoid your own back garden for fear their dog escapes through the fence. The craziest thing of all is that your phobia actually calls dogs to you, so no matter where you go a dog will always turn up! As soon as you clear your phobia they will vanish and you’ll find time to take a relaxing, happy walk in the park.

If you have a phobia of dogs otherwise known as Cynophobia, then you are amongst the 36% of patients who seek treatment for being afraid of dogs or cats. Animal phobias are very common and their treatment for them ranges from a myriad of psychological interventions. Hypnosis has been shown to be very effective at clearing this irrational fear. Obviously if you come up against a dog that is snarling at you and is openly aggressive towards you, you might think that fear is the best policy, but you’d be wrong. Dogs function well in an environment where the owner or the people near it are calm and assertive. Therefore, if you panic, you will actually antagonise the animal making the condition worse. 

I have designed several techniques for overcoming animal phobias, some of them involve hypnosis which can take minutes whilst others can take seconds and utilise my 25 years of experience.

Hypnosis has been used successfully for centuries. What most people fail to realise is that you need dehypnotising if you have a fear of dogs (Cynophobia). The dog inside your mind is the one that appears, whenever you are near anything that resembles a dog. During hypnosis, the classical condition response is used to calm your mind and reassociate positive thoughts with the dog.

Dog phobia is a very common issue. Perhaps a parent or caregiver yelled out or were extra cautious on your behalf around a dog when you were a child. Maybe you were even attacked by a dog, and this memory is still firing up your reptilian brain whenever a dog is anywhere near you. Just the thought of a large or small dog can ignite your amygdala causing an instant negative emotion, which triggers your fear.

Although it’s not always viewed as a serious problem, having a fear of a dog can massively impact on your self-esteem and self-confidence. You may even end up with anxiety about going out in your neighbourhood for fear of bumping in to man’s best friend.

This audio production is designed to help you, the listener, with gaining greater rapport when you want it. By clearing negatively charged Emotional Memory Images from your external screen, your mind and body are able to adapt to the present moment, freeing you of the mental clutter that prevents the arousal centre of your brain from functioning optimally. This audio is your own personal 1 to 1 session with Matt, always available at your convenience.

Matt’s calming, assuring voice gently guides both your conscious mind and unconscious mind towards transformation through the left and right ear respectively. By tapping into the body’s psychoneuroimmunilogical mechanisms – the link between the mind, nervous system and physical wellbeing – this audio helps your brain to improve its cognitive processing ability so your mind will be free to run bright, colourful movies where you can reconnect all of your hopes and dreams, experiencing them fully and safely, from thought into action.

For best results, listen to this audio download first thing in the morning or during the day, every day for 4 weeks. Ensure you’re free from interruptions and distractions when listening. Download now to start positively building up your many different ways to respond near your four-legged (new) friend, today.

This audio is a .MP3 file, compatible with smartphones, tablets, PC’s and other electronic devices.

Audio length: 30 minutes.