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   Small Dog Syndrome
   

By Janice A. Jones | Last Updated January 30, 2020

You’ve probably heard about Small Dog Syndrome, especially
if you have a small dog.  Nowadays
EVERYTHING has to have a name, but defining this so called disease is not so
easy. 

Most trainers agree that the name
refers to a set of undesirable behaviors mostly displayed by small dogs who
want to show everyone who’s really the boss. 

May I also suggest that this definition may have been written by a
person who prefers BIG dogs?  There is
much circulating on this so called syndrome on the internet with little
appearing in scholarly literature. 

The good news is it’s a highly treatable “disease.”

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The Good News About Small Dog Syndrome…

• It does not have a genetic component, so if you’re a
  breeder, no need for expensive genetic testing
• It is not contagious unless you have more than one dog
• It is cheap to treat, no surgery involved, no lengthy
  hospitalization
• It does not require you to administer any tricky medications
  or treatment procedures
• It can be treated entirely with home remedies.

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The Bad News About Small Dog Syndrome…

The owner who decides to treat with home remedies must
understand and agree with the 5A’s:

1. Admit his Canis lupus familiaris (a.k.a. sweet, cute, small
   dog) is a dog
2. Acknowledge his sweet cute small dog is not of the species
   known as Homo sapien
3. Accept responsibility for possibly starting (if dog was
   purchased as a very young puppy)  And/or perpetuating the syndrome
4. Add training to the daily routine
5. Assume a leadership role

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Symptoms of Small Dog Syndrome

As the term syndrome implies, small dogs who may be
“suffering” from this malaise exhibit one or more of the following symptoms.

• Jumping up on people
• Begging for food
• Assuming the best and most comfortable place on the human’s
  bed
• Growling or barking at anyone trying to get close to the
  dog’s owner
• Demanding to get attention, affection, petting, treats, etc.
• Insistence on going through a doorway first
• Pulling on a leash or refusing to walk on a leash at all
• Nipping at people’s heels
• Refusing stubbornly to listen to commands that have already
  been mastered
• Barking or whining at a person
• Finding and sleeping on the highest perch he can find
• Separation anxiety symptoms
• Jumping into a human’s lap uninvited
• Growling or barking at other dogs
• Growling or barking at people

This is basically a list of behaviors that we would prefer not to exist in any dog but can occur as a result of incomplete or inadequate training, socialization and discipline.  Small dogs tend to show some or all of these problems because their owners have chosen to allow them to do so. 

Large dogs can also be guilty of these behaviors but as a rule do not show them to the extent of tiny dogs.  Growling Rottweilers,  biting German Shepherds, jumping Bernese Mountain Dogs or pulling Akitas would not make for good pets. 

However, some if not all of the behaviors listed above can be tolerated to some extent in a 4 pound dog.

All small dogs do not show all of these symptoms, but if your dog does more than a few, he or she is likely to be deemed a Small Dog Syndrome “victim.”  

Luckily there are a few simply cures, but treatment depends on the owner’s willingness to tackle the problem(s).

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How does Small Dog Syndrome Start?

We all love small dogs for many different reasons and often
they are treated as infant substitutes. 
Think about it.  The average human
infant is born weighing 7 or 8 pounds, the exact size of many small dogs. 

They are very easy to pick up, tote around,
hold on our lap and snuggle with in our beds. 
When they whimper or whine, our human reaction is to comfort them just
as we would a human infant.  Small breed
puppies stay small for much longer so it is easy to fall into one of these
traps:

Now, if we owned a 70 pound German Shepherd Dog, would we do
the same?  Would we allow this dog to sit
on our lap, sleep on our pillow, start growling or nip at other humans, allow
them to destroy our home while we’re away, or refuse to come when called? 

Society would probably not allow this and our
beloved GSD would not live to be a ripe old age if he growled, barked, and ran
away when we called him.  So we train our
big dogs. 

We must also train our small
dogs so as to avoid them falling into the small dog syndrome trap.  But that is not the complete
picture.  It becomes a little more
complicated than that.  We must reframe
how we interpret their actions.

Treatment of Small Dog Syndrome

Changing behaviors is neither easy nor impossible, but it does require a small amount of effort on the part of the small breed dog owner to overcome some of those annoying behaviors that have crept up over time.  We must be willing to

• Change our thinking about our dog’s behavior
• Re-socialize our dogs
• Spend time training each day
• Add discipline to our repertoire of good canine owner skills

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We must re-frame or rethink our attitudes…

Take just one example of small dog syndrome:  the example of a dog’s jumping up on us:  In a dog’s mind, jumping is a form of dominance.  In the canine world, a male dog will jump on
a receptive female during mating, but at any other time, one jumping on another
is seen as a form of dominance. 

A dog
who feels more dominant or wants to show more dominance, will put his paws on
the back of another dog.  Unless the
second dog is very submissive, the act of invading the space of the second dog
will often result in a fight.  Dogs
respect another’s space.  When a dog
jumps on you without your permission, he is showing dominance over you.

Now, if that same dog that decides to jump on you also
growls or barks at another person, instead of thinking that the dog is
protecting us, we need to think that the dog Is declaring that we are his
property.  It gives the often overused phrase,
“I’m owned by a Yorkie,” a whole new meaning.

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Prevent Small Dog Syndrome:  Socialization

As puppies we want to assure that our dogs are introduced to
as many new environments, people, animals and experiences as we can
manage. 

Small dogs are usually easy to
socialize.  We love taking our small dogs out in public, but what do we
do?  We carry them, either in our arms or in stylish doggie purses. We even buy strollers so they can have a free ride wherever we go.  Dogs being carried do not get the same type of socialization that a dog
who must walk on a leash receives.

Even our attempts at socialization
may unconsciously lead our dog towards Small Dog Syndrome.

Socialization also involves exposed the puppy to the sounds and smells of her environment.  Doing this in a loving way
without overly comforting the dog if she appears stressed can help her learn to
manage her emotions and her social interactions.  This helps her by assuring that misplaced
fears and anxieties do not set in and become part of her overall
personality. 

Here, I must define what I mean by “overly comforting the
dog.”  Good human mothers will be
available to their infants and young toddlers to help them move slowly but
confidently into the world. 

Human
mothers act as a home base as the young toddler ventures out, comforting as
needed and reassuring, encouraging, and acting like a nurturing cheerleader as
the toddler encounters the world. 

Canine mothers want their pups to venture out too, but are
much less likely to coddle them and shower them with sympathy if they do not at
first succeed. 

We, as pet parents need
to take some lessons from canine mothers and encourage, but not shelter them
from experiences that the pup might find stressful.  A good example of this is when the puppy
cries during a thunderstorm and the human mother picks up the puppy, cuddles and
assures him everything will be OK. 

We
want to protect the pup, but at the same time we want to assure that we do not
add extra stress.  By overly cuddling him
during a thunderstorm actually does the reserve of what we want to
achieve.  It causes the puppy to think
that thunderstorms are an actually reason to be scared and needy. 

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Prevent Small Dog Syndrome:  Training

Basic commands should be taught early and reinforced daily
to even the smallest of puppies. 

Since
tiny puppies usually do not cause the same mayhem of a large rambunctious giant
breed puppy, we are inclined to overlook some bad behaviors. Our oversight if
done regularly results in an adolescent or adult small breed dog that is poorly
behaved. 

How can these oversights
happen, you might ask?  Are small dog
owners just poor dog trainers?  Very
easily…

Training to walk on a
leash:  Requires that the puppy fit
comfortably in a harness.  Collars can be
dangerous to small puppies.  Make sure
you purchase your XXXXXXXS size harness, go very easy and take as much time as
you can to help your puppy learn to walk on a leash.  Sometimes it just easier to wait until the
puppy grows into the smallest size available on the market which is usually a
XXS.

Sit, Stay:  Very important commands, but if the puppy is
small enough, the human can simply pick the puppy up; after all, what’s picking
up a 2 pound puppy verses a 42 pound puppy?

Leave it:  A must to assure that puppy not ingest
anything that might harm him.  Sometimes
it’s easier just to remove the problem than wait for the puppy to learn “Leave
It”

I could go on and on with excuses as to why small breed dog
owners do not train their babies, but I think you get my point.  The truth of the matter is that training IS
important but training a 2 pound puppy is different than training a 42-pound
puppy and in my next article I will go into more details as how training is
accomplished with really small dogs.

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Prevent Small Dog Syndrome:  Discipline

We all know that puppies need discipline.  The classic definition of discipline is
training or how to encourage a specific behavior and should not be confused
with punishment. 

No one disputes the
need for training.  We want to train our
puppies to eliminate themselves in appropriate places, come when they are
called, act appropriately around other dogs, and friendly around people.  As good small dog owners, we must find time
to train, socialize and discipline our tiny dogs.   

For information on how to socialize your
small breed puppy, check out our article on Puppy Socialization.