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Comment by zyxley | Hacker News Reader

When it comes to animal anxiety, I always feel bad about very small dogs in public. It seems like 90% of the chihuahas I've ever seen were incredibly nervous around strangers, some to the point of visibly shaking if too close to a crowd - and I can't blame them, given the size difference.

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Probably has more to do with the socialization of the dog than anything. You've probably seen more small dogs that are vocal and aggressive than large dogs. This is because the owners of a large dog is less likely to tolerate aggression, would put more training in, etc.

We have a dog that's part pit bull, and she's the best behaved dog I've ever had because we can't allow her to act out at all. She just doesn't get the benefit of the doubt from others that a smaller dog or a breed with a better reputation would get.

I've had both a Pekingese and a Rottweiler at the same time and me and my wife raised both with the same affection and attention. We were very relaxed about the Rottweiler, because she was always listening to command when outdoors and we never had to give her special training, whereas we had to keep the Pekingese on a short leash. Can you imagine somebody walking with a free Rottweiler and a leashed Pekingese? That was us.

It had nothing to do with socialization or training. The Pekingese was simply more aggressive and was never listening to our command, when outdoors at least. And at some point we simply have up on trying to educate him, because that was a losing battle. The Rottweiler on the other hand knew what we wanted at all times. She even knew when we wanted her to become aggressive without any special words spoken. Obviously she was never aggressive towards the Pekingese or she would have killed him. A hard thing to do, since this kindness wasn't returned by the Pekingese.

Now don't get me wrong, I loved both. But the Rottweiler was clearly much smarter and more adapted to live as part of a family ;-)

PS: Broke my heart when she died, hence why I'll never adopt a dog again. They live much shorter lives, hence you get to be a parent of sorts, then watch them die, sometimes horribly.

I don't know about Pekingese specifically, but some races of small dogs were intentionally breed to arouse larger dogs in a hunting party. Others were breed to fend off vermin.

It is not unusual to see ill-tempered small dogs at all.

Depends on the dog, I guess. Again I remind all that my wife and I volunteer at an animal shelter, and we see tons of chihuahuas (thanks, Hollywood!). Some can be pretty anxious (you would be, too, if I stuck you in the equivalent of doggie county jail), some have a big dog attitude in a little body. Granted, a shelter is not much of a control environment, but I'd say it's 50/50 on the "shaky, nervous little dog"/"6lb. dog thinks he's a pit bull" ratio. Some are what you've seen, others are as confident as any 120lb. Rottweiler, strutting down the street on their walk.

Without a proper control, I put it down to environment and how they're treated. Many small dogs are "purse dogs" that are treated like accessories instead of dogs, and I hypothesize that has something to do with it. I mean, people get a small dog because it fits a certain lifestyle, and that lifestyle may not include treating your pet such that he gains confidence in all situations. But that's just me talking out my butt, I have nothing that isn't anecdote or SWAG to prove my point.

I think it depends a lot on the density of the crowd. Chihuahuas have become quite popular in the town where I work; Drammen, Norway, about 65k people. And they always seem to me to be quite oblivious to the difference in size between themselves and other dogs and humans. Of course, we don't have crowds in the same way that, say, London or New York has crowds so the risk of being stepped on is rather small (except during the World Cup Ski Sprint of course).

Some of the shaking can also be because they are cold very easily. But yes, I would also be nervous being around people who could break my bones with a small misstep.

This is something that in hindsight would seem to be obvious, but really isn't. If you've spent almost your whole life weighing 100+ pounds, it's really hard to imagine the rapid heat loss that is experienced if you weight 1/10th of that. This applies to pets, but also babies and small children.

I always looked down at people whose dogs wore sweaters. I thought they are just wimps. Now we have a chihuahua and she is wearing sweaters when it's below 75.

absolutely the same story here, 76 in our case :) - very thin coat. I remember reading story about a small dog where "having outfit for each season" was mentioned as a kind of outrageous pumpering of the dog, and how i'd had agreed with that before having our chihuahua. Now we have sweaters, light and heavy, jackets, jackets with hood - the hood goes on when windy, still trying to find good convenient pants, tried boots - shakes them off, it is ok, anyway we aren't going in the rain :)

I carry my dog in the rain or when it's too windy while she is wearing a rain jacket. My tough guy image is definitely gone :-)

I'd assume that's due to a lack of exposure - NYC has a lot of small dogs and I don't ever recall seeing the behavior you describe

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