This show takes every single silly animu cliche ever and turns it up to 11 so it becomes so absurd and surreal the cliche in question becomes alive. I've seen this joke in other anime shows before (Azumanga Daioh comes to mind) but there is played far more straight, here it doesn't give a single fuck about anything.
I might have been afraid of Dogs forever if I'd seen this as a really young pup. It's probably supposed to be funny, but magnifies a few Dog nips a thousand times.
Then again, the faster you get over this stuff, the better. I did see old Disney stuff like Bambi and Old Yeller, but that seemed pretty natural, I wasn't scarred.