Pam, the biggest dogs I've had were a yellow lab and an airedale. I was in my 30's when I had them and used to have achy arms from trying to control them. From there we went to the cockapoos, 25 - 30 lbs. (Okay, Hannah is slightly over that right now, but like the weight on my driver's license, I'm going to just leave that figure as is.) Our next dog might not be for another 8 years. By then the label "senior citizen" will be unavoidable, so it will definitely be a small dog.