I'm not sure what a non-true phobia would be; fear is fear.
My son loved dogs until he watched my ridiculous father's Golden try to bite me. I tell you that man ruined his Goldens, who live to do their master's bidding. I had been there for a day or more, they knew me by then, they knew that their family knew me. I left the kitchen, went onto the porch, pet the female and greeted her and the male, left the gate, went to my car, came back to the porch carrying what I went to get, and she attacked my arm.
Thankfully I was raised with malamutes and they were raised by my mother who actually knew what she was doing when raising big dogs (my dad somehow thought that being around every so often when my mom was raising the male malamute and taking him to obedience classes etc "counted"), and I was able to stay calm and cool and somehow did NOT get bitten. And I then TRIED to keep my father from going out to scream at the dog ('cuz that'll help her figure out how to behave) but I was unsuccessful.
And, sadly, my little guy (3 at the time) watched it all, and was terrified of dogs for a few years after that. It was tremendously sad. (he's also scared of my dad, but rightfully so, and I feel no need to work with him on that because I think it's good to worry about that dude)
Thankfully he was able to conquer the fear of dogs that it all caused. To see that I was quite competent and calm, that no other dog has ever tried to do that, that we stay away from stranger-dogs ALWAYS, that we properly greet dogs and don't expect that they'll remember us 1 minute after last seeing us (my mistake, but our dogs never behaved like that and malamu
