A childhood belief about in the street

When I was really young, I was always escaping the house into the yard or street or whereever. My mom had decided the best strategy was to instill fear into me by telling me that if I strayed too far, dogs and cats would attack and kill me, tearing my body to pieces. At the age of 2, I was pretty gullible. (I'm pretty gullible now, but not to this extent.) One day, I was at my cousin's place and we were going up a steep set of old stone steps in the backyard. I was in front and being much younger could not see the neighborhood's meanest cat ("Rusty") at the top of the steps who turned and hissed at me. I remember waking up in my aunt's place with my head supposedly split open. It would be another couple of years before my fear of dogs would go away.