What's the challenge?
To interact with various dog sizes at a dog park.
What are you afraid of?
I've been always terrified of big dogs, mostly the playful ones. When I am around a dog I feel I have no control whatsoever over the situation, that makes me anxious and a bit irrational at times.
How was the experience?
This is by far one of the biggest challenges I've been exposed to. This fear started when I was very little, might have been the consequence of a baby camel chasing after me on my trip to Israel at age 6, who knows. The fact is that this fear has been keeping me from visiting friend's houses and being able to step out of the car at my family's reunion. I've embarrassed myself jumping on people's dining tables and so on. it hasn't been easy. So when I moved to NY, I noticed that everybody had a dog and I couldn't keep living my life afraid of such common animal. So I've been trying to acknowledge the fact that dogs are good animals and that they won't hurt me, for quit some time now. I was a bit anxious but even excited to go to the dog park. Once there, I played with every kind of dog no matter the size or look. I was impressed to see that they were all super nice to me and that they just wanted someone to play with. I don't think you overcome such fear in so little time, but I do believe this helped me understand that dogs don't want to hurt me, they just want to have fun.