Keeley is the cure

Someone asked for more details about how Keeley cured me of my extreme fear of dogs. Here I will try to explain...

For as long as I can remember, I’d been scared to death of dogs. If I was walking down the street and there was a dog on leash walking towards me, I’d cross the street. If there was a dog off leash walking towards me, I would not only cross the street, but I would go several blocks out of my way to go around the dog. During the holidays when relatives would force their dogs on me, I would cry and climb onto chairs, tables, countertops, anything to get away from the dog. At one point I just decided to stop visiting relatives with dogs.

But it wasn’t just dogs, to a lesser degree I was also scared of gerbils, hamsters, cats, ferrets, basically anything with fur. Oddly though, I was not scared of frogs, snakes, or lizards. What a strange girl I was, scared of the cute animals and not the creepy crawlies. Some kids that I babysat for liked to torture me by sneaking up on me and putting their gerbil on my shoulder. It was horrible!

I think I became scared of dogs because my mom was scared of them too and I sort of learned it from her. Then my fear just spread to all animals with fur. As a kid, Ryan was scared of dogs too and he openly blames me for making him that way. But once he got his height (he’s 6’2” now) he wasn’t scared of them anymore. He still doesn’t like dogs, but it’s more like he’s just indifferent to them now.

Since I eventually want to get some kids and I don’t want to make them scared like me, I knew that someday I would just have to get over this extreme fear of dogs but I wasn’t in any rush.

Then our friends got a new puppy, Romare, the giant Airedale. We visited when Romare was just like 11 weeks old. He was so cute! I was still scared so all I did was observe him. He’d have a lot of energy for about 20 minutes and then he’d take a 20 minute nap. I thought, well this is a schedule I could get used to! Then we visited again about 5 weeks later. Romare had grown a lot and I was still scared. His dads told me a lot about how to train him, about puppy teeth, and stuff like that. That’s when I began thinking, well maybe if I started with a puppy, I could make him mine and get over this fear.

About a year after that, I bought a duplex with my mom. It needed a lot of work at first. But after about 6 months, I started thinking puppy. I knew that I wanted an Irish Terrier because I’d seen them at Irish Fest and thought they were adorable. I started to do research about them and there were lots of things that I really liked about the breed. For example, Irish Terriers are not one person dogs, they love their entire family. Also, Irish Terriers sometimes appear unfriendly or aloof when meeting new people. It’s untrue, they’re just reserved. I liked that because I’m often accused of this myself.

I also read some scary things. One website said something like: Irish Terriers get along great with other animals as long as the other animal is submissive or dead. Some other website said that they require very strict training and firm handling (but not too firm or you could break their spirit) and that they were not good dogs for people who weren’t experienced with dogs. At one point my mom tried to talk me into a Scottie or a Westie instead, but I pointed out to her that the internet says bad things about all the terriers. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s just people trying to protect the breeds by scaring people away from them.

My mom found Keeley for me. His breeder, Stephanie Mars, just had a big litter of 10 born on St. Patrick’s Day. We told her that I did not want an alpha male, but instead wanted a sweet, playful, friendly, fur-boy. She sure did a good job picking Keeley for me because he’s all those things and more!

Of course I had to wait seven more weeks till I got him and in that time I think I read at least 7 dog books. One was a breed specific book about Irish Terriers, one was about how to prepare your house for a puppy, several were about house training and crate training and basic obedience, one was by Patricia McConnell about how to be a pack leader, and one was called The Art of Raising a Puppy.

I think during the whole puppy search and the waiting period, I was already getting over my fear of dogs at least a little bit. By learning the correct way to raise a puppy, I finally understood why some dogs were so scary. It wasn’t their fault really, they were just raised poorly.

When I finally got Keeley, I was more scared than ever! I was scared because here was this little life that was totally dependant upon me to take good care of him and raise him well. That’s an awful lot of responsibility and it was very scary at first.

I had read about crate training and having to be tough and ignoring a puppy’s cries at night. I tried to be tough and leave Keeley alone in his crate the first night. But I ended up sleeping on the floor in front of his crate.

Keeley’s first several car rides were to the vet and so he didn’t deal with car rides very well at first. He’d fidget and nip at my hands. There was one car ride where he bit at my mom’s hands so much that by the time we got home they were a bloody mess. However, she loves Keeley so much now, she says she doesn’t remember this incident.

Also, Keeley gave me a bloody nose once by nipping at me with his sharp little puppy teeth. He really got scared when I started crying though. I know he didn’t do it on purpose but I still got really mad and punished him by putting him in his “house-y, house-y” (the kitchen pantry with a baby gate) for 30 minutes. My mom said that the punishment was too harsh but after that he really understood having a gentle mouth.

We also made a big effort to get Keeley socialized. I set a goal of having Keeley meet 100 different dogs by the time he was 21 weeks old. And another goal of having him meet 100 different types of people by the time he was 13 weeks old. People of all ages, races, etc. People with facial hair, people in uniforms, etc. I know we did this really well because Keeley loves all dogs and people too.

Raising a puppy is a lot like raising a kid. The way to have a happy and well behaved one is to make sure that all their needs are met. They just need the right amount of food, exercise, rest, play, attention, and love. And if you don't want them to be scared, you have to expose them to a lot of stuff when they're young.

I think I was cured of my fear of dogs after about 2 weeks. Once I understood them, they weren’t scary anymore. I’m 100% unafraid now. It took my mom a little longer and she’s about 98% unafraid now (she says a little fear is healthy).