A number of years ago, I went to do a consultation at a home in the British Properties.
When I walked through the front door the smell of urine was overwhelming and I almost stepped in what I thought was the problem I was being called over to help fix.
" So you have a house training problem," I said to the dog owner.
She kind of looked at me sideways and said, "No, why do you say that?"
"Because there is poop at the front door and under the coffee table," I said with confusion in my voice.
"Oh, we don't care about that. They are little dogs. Their poop is so little we clean it up and it's not a bother at all. It's their barking; it's driving us nuts."
This may seem like an outrageous story, but it is a true one. Surprisingly it is not as uncommon as you may think. There is a general consensus among many people that the size of a dog determines its behaviour, meaning a small dog automatically means a good dog. Let me set the record straight: The size of a dog is never the issue that determines whether a dog is good or bad. It is always the owner.
Recently in Ontario, a small dog was deemed a vicious dog because the dog ran off its front porch and bit a child walking on the sidewalk on the leg. To paraphrase the owner's response to the vicious dog label, she said: what's wrong with a child that can't defend herself against a six-pound dog?
What's wrong with an owner who has no empathy towards other human beings and allows his or her dog, regardless of size, to be a terror to other members of the community, human or canine?
If this was a large dog, the outrage over the incident would have demanded that the dog be euthanized.
Fortunately, saner minds prevailed and instead of the incident being overlooked as a parenting issue of the child involved the dog was seized, assessed and given a vicious dog label, as it should have been.
Many people get small dogs because they believe their demure size will allow the owners to physically manage them easier than large dogs, and training seems to be an afterthought.
I have seen 200-pound men being dragged down the street by 10-pound dogs, and I have seen a 12-year-old walking a malamute in a perfect heel. Again, it is not the dog, it is the owner.
Society demands that large-breed dogs are well behaved social members of our community.
When someone sees a small dog lunging, barking and snapping while pulling at the end of a leash, they chuckle to themselves or don't give it much thought. If it was a large dog behaving like that, animal control would surely be called out to deal with the situation.
Small dogs get away with many inappropriate behaviours simply because they are small.
Large dogs live under a microscope and are scrutinized for every misdeed.
Many small dog owners expect large dog owners to micromanage their dogs around their small dogs. While the small dog barks frantically at a passing large dog, the small dog owner does nothing while the large dog owner is expected to keep their dog on a short leash to prevent an altercation.
Even housing complexes and strata councils discriminate toward large-breed dogs, stating that condo owners are limited to the size of dog they can have on their property assuming that size somehow determines the acceptable behaviour of a dog.
I know that this has ruffled the feathers of many small dog owners out there, but I think it was time that it was said.
I also want to thank the many small dog owners who have done a fabulous job socializing and training their dogs with the same amount of time and effort it takes to train a large dog, proving that size doesn't matter.
