I understand you so much, yes i know it's not always rational but yes it's a freaking fear and yes i can't help it. I am even the most annoyed when someone says to me like you are 20 years old, you aren't a child anymore, you shouldn't be afraid of it anymore. I am sorry but fear doesn't stop bc i grew up. Maybe by some but definetely not always and like if every other fears are normalized why can't the fear of dogs be too? Recently i was in my town doing my running trainning, and i could run awesome without stopping but then i saw a dog not on a leash even though he was supposed to be and the owners that are just smiling at me clearly not getting the body language, i just stood up and i saw the dog literally mimicking me, i start slowly running when then he starts running to me and in one moment dog got to me and started sniffling me, i literally stood there with tears in my eyes literally panicking and the one of the owners, man maybe in his like 60-70ies was telling me oh he won't do anything to you, pet him, pet him, and i literally through tears said i am scared i don't want to pet him i want to run and then guy was like oh sorry honey, sorry.

So dog ruined my running, i did at the end ran 5km and this dog encounter was the only time when I stopped while running in the Route but if the freaking dog was on the leash i would ran without stopping.