Good morning my name is Kelly I'm a newbie.

Hi, welcome to the community! We are glad that you were here!! Do you think your fear of dogs is partly based on trauma, and also partly based on the OCD? It totally makes sense to have some trauma around this issue if you have been attacked before. It's very healthy for you to face this trauma and work through it so that you can function every day, enjoying your own dog and feeling comfortable with other dogs outside.. The OCD, on the other hand, is its own ballgame. Trauma can relate to it, but the OCD has its own set of rules. The best way to handle the OCD is usually through ERP therapy. Not all therapists will equip you to do ERP therapy on your own. And not all therapists are the best at relating ERP therapy to you. However, I think that if you can understand ERP therapy well, then you will have the tools that you need to overcome this fear of dogs (and also any other OCD fear). In my mind, ERP therapy is more than just designing exposures for yourself in order to face your fears . ERP therapy is a whole set of tools for handling everything that OCD throws against us . For starters, ERP gives us a strategy to handle the repetitive, disturbing, intrusive thoughts. (This is done through allowing the thoughts to play in our heads without fighting them. However, we take ABSOLUTELY NO action based on those thoughts.) Secondly, ERP trains us to deny ourselves of SAFETY BEHAVIORS. The safety behaviors are actually compulsions. So, for example, someone might feel that washing their hands is actually keeping them safe from some disease that their OCD thoughts are warning them about. But this is actually a COMPULSION. It is a behavior designed to mitigate the dangers implied by OCD thoughts. However, the OCD isn't real. So we don't need to engage in any safety behaviors regarding it. When we engage in the safety behaviors, we are actually just reinforcing the idea that our fears were real in the first place. ------------//-------- I highly recommend ERP therapy through NOCD. All of their therapists are highly trained in it. It's very easy to go through NOCD. I have done it three times. They take most insurance, and all their sessions are over zoom. I know your situation is probably very complicated and probably has a lot of nuances. I'm going to guess a few things of what ERP would look like for you, in part. It might have to do with you exposing yourselves to both other peoples dogs and your own dog until you get desensitized . The idea is to get you functioning in society, where you can interact with all dogs in a healthy way, and you can also enjoy your time with them. You might have a lot of questions. I'm here listening if you want to talk. Sometimes it takes a long time to process through all of our OCD ins- and-outs. But it can be really helpful to do that. I'm here if you want to write what you are thinking and feeling:):) :):):)

I don’t own any pets, so unfortunately, I don’t have a lot of advice on how to go about the fencing, but I can definitely relate to your fear! I was attacked about a year and a half ago and still have nightmares about it, but I think the more positive experiences I’ve been having with other dogs, like my friends’ or sister’s, the better my fear has gotten! It is hard because the owners should not be letting that happen. I hope it gets better for you!!!