Love/Hate with animals

Julia loves animals, but at the same time they scare her.

She LOVES cats and goes around saying "Kitty, Kitty" and trying to love on the cats. But as soon as the cat tries to initiate the contact, Julia freaks out. If the cats get into a tussle among themselves, she gets so scared she comes running to me screaming and crying. For several minutes after, she is really scared of any cat and wants them nowhere near her. The cats have NEVER harmed her or even attempted to harm her. Most just try to say out of her path. So I don't know where the fear is coming from.

Same goes for dogs. She loves watching dogs on TV, but is TERRIFIED of them in real life. We went to a friends house this weekend that have 2 well trained dogs. Julia completely freaked out at the sight of them and if she could have sat on top of my head, she would have. Anything to get her as far way from the dogs as possible. At one point one of the dogs licked her leg and you would have thought the world was coming to an end. Towards the end of the visit, she was okay with the dogs in the house as we sat on the porch, but as soon as a dog would look at her, she would freak out all over again. So she spent the whole visit scared of the dogs, but as soon as we left she started talking about "dog" and saying "boof" (Julia speak for woof). The whole rest of the day, all Julia talked about was "dog" and "boof".

I think maybe Julia needs a puppy of her very own!