Baby steps is a good idea Inertia. A smaller baby step would be to look at a picture of a dog - or even thinking about/imagining them if you need to before building up to a real dog - maybe one in a cage at a pet store or something/behind the glass. You'll need some good relaxation techniques to go with this though, otherwise, the exposure will just "spike" your phobia further as Inertia mentioned with needles. You need to stay with the small step until you feel relaxed or reasonably under control. And then move to the next one etc.