Author Topic: Fear of small dogs?  (Read 9571 times)

Offline Proliant

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Fear of small dogs?
« on: March 30, 2005, 04:54:08 pm »
Strangely  enough, Goliath seems to shy away from small dogs (but not other animals), but any dog bigger than him he seems happy to play with (A Great Dane is his favorite). Does this happen to anyone else?

ilovemyaussies

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Re: Fear of small dogs?
« Reply #1 on: March 30, 2005, 05:00:27 pm »
My Cavalier King Charles was raised with Australian Shepherds. When he was old enough to go out in public we soon learned that he would bark out of fear/stress when around smaller (his size) dogs.  At first we couldn't figure out why he was doing this.  However, we than realized that my Cav doesn't realize he is small!  He thinks he is an Australian Shepherd.  So we have been working on socializing him around small dogs ever since. 

I have attached a picture of my Cav meeting one of my Aussies the first day he was brought home. 

Offline jabear

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Re: Fear of small dogs?
« Reply #2 on: April 20, 2005, 08:03:52 pm »
How funny! Bear is afraid of my brother-in-law's toy-Yorkie who is a whole 4 pounds. I think he is unsure of what he really is since his bark sounds more like bird chirping. ;D
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Jaime
  Mom to one handsome black Bear.

Offline mastiffmommy

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Re: Fear of small dogs?
« Reply #3 on: April 22, 2005, 10:18:39 pm »
The breeder where we are getting our OEM puppy from, got a couple of terriers, her dughter is showing them as a junior handler. She says she can see a big difference in her OEM's now, how they react to small dogs. Before when she showed them, and a small dog got up in their faces they got nervous, now she says they are cool with it. If a small dog starts barking at them, they look like they are thinking "ohhh well, another one of those". I think mainly it is because a lot of our big dogs, don't get to get used to small dogs from when they are real young, so they are simply not used to something that little and something that barks with a very aggrevating voice.

When I had my danes I also had a min. Schnauzer, she was great with the big dogs, they are almost like a big dog in a small package.

Marit
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Offline Mountainmom

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Re: Fear of small dogs?
« Reply #4 on: May 17, 2005, 09:37:00 am »
Khan doesn't know that he is a big dog. He thinks he is a Cocker Spaniel 8)

Khan is know about 9.5 months and weighs around 140. I have the opposite problem, he is afraid of other large dogs, and will drop or bark and back away when approached. we are working on it ::)

Mountainmom