By Annie Culver

You won’t get me to pet a dog unless it’s wagging its tail and held on a very short leash by its owner.

When I see a four-legged beast coming my way, I quietly, reflexively, curl my fingers so I won’t lose any. I lift my arms, too, telling myself to calm down so the canine won’t sniff my fear.

You dog lovers can call mine an irrational phobia if you like. Maybe you haven’t heard about Diane Whipple, the San Francisco lacrosse coach recently killed in an attack by a rare breed of guard dog, a Presa Canario, in the hallway outside her posh apartment. Any dog that lunges for a woman’s throat must have been trained to be evil. With an estimated 53 million dogs in the U.S., how can we spot the assassins, leashed or not, when we’re walking down the street — or, as Diane Whipple was, simply coming home from the grocery store?

There’s an ebb and flow to my dread of dogs. For a couple years, a boyfriend with a gentle, velvet-eared mutt quelled my terror. Still, a man with a dog that shares his bed is about as attractive as a married man who wants a little action on the side.

I have all these scary canine flashbacks running through my brain:

Scene: The sleepy side streets of Goleta, Calif., just outside Santa Barbara in 1998. I am standing on the sidewalk with two other political activists, canvassing a middle-class neighborhood about an upcoming ballot initiative.

Action: A man flings open his garage door and his Rottweiler bounds out, lunging for one of my colleagues. In a single leap and with one snap of its steel jaws, the Rottweiler rips the front pocket off my friend’s hiking shorts. Had his overstuffed wallet not been in that pocket, his thigh — or worse — could have suffered the consequences.

Shocking moments like that make me regress to the first grade:

Scene: A Chicago winter. I am 6 years old at a time when dogs roam freely, often in packs. I have to walk three blocks back and forth to school each day. Sometimes fiercely territorial barking beasts chase me for blocks.

Action: There is snow everywhere. I take a shortcut home from school. Big mistake. A huge, unfamiliar black dog chases me, making me run so hard that I overshoot my house by three blocks. The button on my snow pants pops off. The heavy wool pants begin to drop. I can’t run with my pants around my knees, so I stop running, fearing a nose-to-nose encounter with the relentless canine. Luckily, the dog loses interest and bounds off through the snow. I come home crying, pants now down around my ankles, legs red and chafed. My mother thinks I’ve been molested (she tells me years later).

Even when I’m a grown woman, the fear of face-to-face encounters with dogs doesn’t stop:

Scene: A close friend’s grand old home in the hills of Northeast Portland, Ore., on a rainy Friday at dusk in the early ‘90s. She leaves a key for me under the mat.

Action: Carrying a suitcase, I unlock the door and encounter the family’s three-legged Sharpei. The dog and I have met before, but not one-on-one and never in the twilight. It growls and barks. I try a phony sweet voice, but the Sharpei lunges. I drop my suitcase between us as a barricade. Then I’m out of there. I don’t go back until somebody comes to secure the dog. (My instincts were correct. The Sharpei is later put down for biting a family friend and a roofer badly enough to require stitches.)

So how rational is my fear of dogs? The American Veterinary Medical Association reports about 4.5 million dog bites in the U.S. every year. Pit bulls are responsible for nearly half the 140 people killed by dogs over the past 20 years. Since the death of Diane Whipple, Presa Canarios have joined Rottweilers, German shepherds and huskies as the leading breeds to watch out for.

The truth is too many dogs are bred today to fight and protect. Even middle-class homeowners buy big guard dogs to defend their property. These very people risk losing their homes, cars and the rest of their assets if their dogs bite and the victims take them to court. It’s not unusual for the insurance industry to shell out $250 million a year just for dog bites. If a dog bites and its victim sues, an insurance company might pay the first claim, then will either cancel the policy or exclude the dog from future liability coverage. It’s also getting tougher to find homeowner’s liability insurance that’ll cover breeds recognized as attackers.

Is it paranoia that leads people to own scary dogs and lock them up in fenced yards? How many times must we read about toddlers finding their way into these killer dog pens? Or what happens when locked gates are accidentally left open.

Owning a dog is a responsibility as well as a right. So don’t just clean up after that assertive canine with the snapping jaw. Muzzle the beast, if need be.

For advice on handling canines, check out MSN Pets “Doggy bites: preventing snappy jaws.” Also see why dogs are territorial.

Annie Culver is UnderWire’s editor-at-large and a frequent contributor. Check out her Body Eclectic story on group showers.

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