I love pets but I’m so scared of animals

I don’t remember when my fear of animals started. I have photographs of myself with animals from when i was a child and teenagers. Photos from zoo interactions and old family dogs and such.

The only kinds of pets I have had as a kid were fish. Some goldfish, that died after a few weeks. Then a fighting fish that stayed alive for several months.

I was often envious of people who had dogs and cats that they were so close to. I never felt like I wanted one but I was envious of the relationship those people had with their “smarter” pets. Something I could never get from my fishy friends.

It is only after I became an adult, i realized how much work goes into training dogs, caring for them and how expensive it can be to have a dog in Singapore. Moreover, since most people live in flats here, the amount of space available for a dog would be really small, so you’d have to have a small dog. That’s not to say that people don’t have large dogs in flats. They do, but it just seems a bit cruel, to me. The worst culprit of unkindness to dogs would be having breeds like huskies in tropical Singapore. Anyway, it’s up to those people, i guess.

Back to my animal fear. I currently do not interact with any animals. There are loads of stray and outdoor cats in my neighborhood. I don’t get with in 2 meters of them, if i can help it. I also stay well away from people walking their dogs. I have been trying to get over this fear for the past couple of months, but the progress is slow.

Back in 2018, my husband and I decided that we wanted to keep hamsters as pets. He has had them before as a kid. Of course, it was completely foreign territory to me.

We ended up getting two female dwarf hamsters that we named Timid and Brave. We had Timid for a year and a half and Brave for almost two. In all that time, I never held either of them. I stroked their backs and that was it. I did everything else to take care of them but never held them. I was just too afraid. It seemed so silly to be scared of little rodents that I loved so much, and could fit in the palm of my hand. In fact, it feels silly now. I feel extremely embarrassed about it.

The worst part of it is that I did it again, when we got another little hamster after Brave’s passing. We got a male one this time as we had heard that males are less aggressive. This was just to encourage me to play with him and hold him. Yet again, i did not! For 2 years! Till he passed. I’m ashamed to say that i only held his little body.

There and then I made a decision to work hard on not being so afraid of pet animals. Thankfully, I have been making tremendous progress. I have stopped crossing the roads to get away from people walking their dogs and I don’t quicken my pace when I have to walk past the stray cats area in my neighbourhood. I hope to stay on this path to “recover” from this irrational fear of perfectly tame animals.