I’ll preface this with some background. I (22M) grew up in a k9 law enforcement family. Father was a handler for many years and I’ve fostered/trained/been around GSD’s and Mal’s my whole life. This girl I’ve been seeing (21F) had a horrible accident with a dog about a year ago and is terrified of any type of dog.
With that out of the way, a huge thing for me personally, is that I need to have my dogs. They’re a part of me and I couldn’t ever imagine them not being here. She says she wants to get past what she went through and that she wants me to be the one to help her, but I just can’t shake the feeling that there will be an accident or that she never will be able to overcome her fear. I’ve trained some of the sweetest, loving, and gentle dogs that can flip a switch the second they’re in work mode, and quite frankly become lethal without a handler around. Even had some fail out of academy due to being too docile. It’s just in the back of my mind that I know how to train my dogs to be such companions, but if ANYTHING was to ever happen to her with a dog of mine, I’d never be able to forgive myself. I obviously have scars all over my body from doing what I did, but they were something I was expecting and went into it knowing that if something happened, that it’s just a part of owning/training dogs. I can’t imagine how her accident was for her, just out of the blue with absolutely no warning. I want to help her, but I’m just worried that something could go south at any moment. Any advice is greatly appreciated
TLDR; girl I’m seeing is extremely afraid of dogs, but I could never see a future without dogs