"Small Dog Syndrome"

[pomtzu]

My small dogs get on the furniture, sleep in bed with us, and are generally quite spoiled. However, none of them are snappy, aggressive or yappy. It's just like with human kids ... you can love and spoil them, and still teach them and provide discipline.

Agreed - 100%. That's the life of my Myndi and Sparky. Neither have ever been snappy even for one second, and neither could be considered yappy either. They both will bark to alert us of anything outside that shouldn't be in their yard, and Myndi can be quite a talker (much different than yapping) with my son (those 2 carry on a real conversation everyday when he gets home from work), but she never just yaps just for the heck of it.

That article was an interesting read too - thanks for the link. It just goes to show you, that if you have a yapper and/or snapper, then it's most likely the human's fault!

[IRescue452]

I agree with most of the article. Small dogs are allowed to get away with things because people don't see the harm when the 3 pound dog "can't possibly inflict all that much damage". If they'd imagine they're same dog as 100 pounds then they might see that their dog could have seriously hurt somebody. There's personality issues as well though. My aunt has 4 chihuahuas and only 1 of them is friendly and the other three are some of the worst cases of aggression I've had to deal with. I recently dog sat and to get them outside I had to dump them out of their kennels and stand back. How did the 1 get friendly?

[snakemama]

I insist on excellent manners from Jasper...he's not a tiny dog but he's small enough that when he jumps and I correct him people often say "Oh, it's ok, I don't mind".....but I DO!