LITTLE DOG SYNDROME

Calling on a client recently, I was confronted at the front door by a vicious, snarling, little ball of doggie fluff. The client said she had left the little fellow in the house to show me the extent of its bad behaviour. This was not new to me; it's known as "little dog syndrome". Cute little dogs can often turn into monsters when strangers arrive. Dogs with "little dog syndrome" don't allow just anyone to touch them.

So what's going on here? Well, simply because a dog is cute and small doesn't mean it knows it is cute and small, it's still all canine in its mind and sees itself as a much larger creature. It is widely accepted that our dog's ancestors were wolves and there are a lot of similarities between dogs and wolves. We have greatly changed their appearance, some traits and characteristics, but have only slightly changed their mind, so the smallest dog will take on the biggest opponent with no fear of consequence, because it's all in the mind.

Small dogs can become very aggressive because our interaction with them indicates that they are the leader of our household, or in other words "our pack". One of the duties of a pack leader is to protect both the pack and the territory, hence the aggression. Because our smaller breeds are often so cute and cuddly we tend to spoil them and often allow them the creature comforts we would not allow larger dogs, such as letting them sleep in our bed, allowing them on our furniture and forever carrying them around. This allows our dogs to see themselves as leaders and the main reason that they become over-protective of us, and their territory.

So can these little darlings be helped? Most definitely. We need to be assertive (not aggressive), consistent and kind in our interaction with our dogs. We need to take back our role as leader, then our small dogs will soon realise that we can actually protect ourselves and its need to aggressively over-react will soon subside.