Owners picking little dogs up

I'm guessing a lot of you have had owners of smaller dogs panic and pick them up when they see your dog.It happened to me this morning. the result of Gizmo seeing a dog being lifted up is always, always him leaping up and snapping at the dog being held.  No injuries, just Gizmo having some tail fluff in his mouth.

If I spot a small dog I don't know in time I'll put him on the lead. But I have no idea how to stop him from leaping up to get a dog, because nothing is as exciting as that. What should I be doing?

The owner said 'I know picking up is the wrong thing to do, but he's being naughty with other dogs at the moment and I panicked.'

The question is, what should they do in that situation? Does anyone have any tips to pass on to people with smaller dogs?

Honestly, if he is leaping up at people/dogs, he would not be off the lead if he was mine. Its entirely unacceptable behavior. Id have him on a longer lead and communicate to people before you reach them that he is in training. I would be trying to get his attention to you before he is close enough to anyone else to leap up - so he might associate other dogs or dogs in arms as "ooo mum/dad has a treat" maybe?

The leaping only happens when someone lifts their dog up. He'll be completely calm and usually ignoring the little dog, they'll lift the dog up, he starts leaping.

You can train then not to react to dogs being picked up. Start with a squeaky toy or something that's sort of exciting but not alive ( ). Let him know you've got it, ask for sit, then give it to him. After a couple of repeats, squeak the toy till he goes to jump up. Ask him to sit, give him the toy. Repeat that a few times.

Once he's got the idea that sitting gets him his toy, then really go to town with the squeaking and making it super exciting. Any time he sits, whether you ask or not, gets the toy. Then stop asking and let him work out that sitting is what gets his reward.

Do this with lots of different things, cuddly toys, treats, whatever. Try and excite him to jumping up but only ever give him his reward for sitting.

Then find yourself a friend with a small dog who can be picked up. Now keep everything calm, have Gizmo on lead just in case, and have your friend pick the dog up. Give Gizmo a moment to see if he will do it on his own but if he doesn't, ask him to sit - huge treat! Repeat, repeat.

I always have treats on me, even if I don't hand any out because there's not call for one, they are there if I need them for something like this. If you see someone go to pick a small dog up outside training, call Gizmo and get his attention, then ask him to sit and treat him. The training you've done should mean that he now knows what to do.

Liz's post is brilliant, I would also always be close enough to Gizmo when he approaches another dog to be able to pop his lead on if he looks like he's going to jump and then reward him for his sit/calm behaviour. Even when trained instinct could take over resulting in him getting over excited and falling back on old behaviours, which isn't suitable when other people's dogs are involved. If he's running up to other dogs and you can't call him back, more training is required and a training line might be useful in this instance.

Having a dog reactive dog myself, I keep her on a lead and have trained Bug to sit behind me when a dog approaches and then I call to the owner and ask them to call their dog back. The owner is usually miles away though and their dog has no recall, resulting in Bug getting fed up and reacting. Really, walking a dog that isn't great with other dogs in a dog park isn't the wisest idea anyway, but at the same time no matter where you are it's good manners to ask the owner of their dog wants to play first before letting your dog approach, so this is 50:50 really regarding what you should do and what they should do. Even if her dogs was just having an off day he still needs exercise and should be allowed that without other dogs approaching uninvited.

I honestly don't think it's about advising people with the smaller dogs on how to react in this situation, i think it's completely down to you and Gizmo to react appropriately and the advice given above sounds great!

I use a "what's this??" with Rio which he associates with a squeaky toy so he will 90% of the time break concentration and look at me, but I would keep him on a lead for good few walks whilst he's training

The lady with the grumpy small dog (her description) did say she didn't know what else to do other than pick him up, so I thought I'd ask to see if anyone had suggestions.

I've got a couple of days off coming up so Gizmo will be getting a thorough rundown of Liz and Rachel's posts.

all I can add is keep your voice level and calm cant add anything else

Maybe the lady with grumpy dog could do some training too It sounds like some training classes might be appropriate, and I'd certainly say it should be on lead, not picked up, and taught the same sort of thing, to sit for a reward when it sees another dog.

It's really odd, isn't it, that small dogs appear to have different rules, as if they were a different species. If our dogs, or a GSD or a rottie or something barked and snapped the way some small dogs do, you'd be facing calls to have it muzzled, or worse. Little dog owners shrug it off. I suppose at least this lady has recognised there's an issue, which is a start.

LizP wrote:Maybe the lady with grumpy dog could do some training too It sounds like some training classes might be appropriate, and I'd certainly say it should be on lead, not picked up, and taught the same sort of thing, to sit for a reward when it sees another dog.

It's really odd, isn't it, that small dogs appear to have different rules, as if they were a different species. If our dogs, or a GSD or a rottie or something barked and snapped the way some small dogs do, you'd be facing calls to have it muzzled, or worse. Little dog owners shrug it off. I suppose at least this lady has recognised there's an issue, which is a start.

The same seems to happen with anything miniature. I meet many mini horses whos manners are atrocious. If it was a larger horse it would be shot for being dangerous!

This is one situation where I like small snappy dogs, mine are always on lead because they will pick up a small dog to play with but the bravado soon diminishes when its some yappy ball of fluff with teeth having a go at them and they cower by my legs pleading with me to make it go away
at the end of the day picking up the dog has a greater psychological effect on the dog being picked up rather than the other dog teaching it that imminent danger is ahead. I have seen the difference in how my guys react to a confident dog over a nervous one. they have a great park buddy that is some unknown small fluffy thing that out postures both of them and is about a quarter of the size. they will drag me over to it to say hello even though i hate the owner... stuck up bitch but at least she has let her dog develop so respect there.

Tiny angry horses...and ponies! My grandma had a scar from being bitten by a stroppy shetland pony she was looking after.

Gizmo has plenty of buddies who are titchy dogs, he's also been told off by enough of them that I know he'll back off the second one says they don't want to play with him.

The incident I was talking about above actually happened a few minutes after he'd been playing with a bichon friesey type little dude wearing a superdog coat (clothing worn for grass allergies, not dress-up).

'Stroppy' ususally means upset in the horse/pony world. Dogs sadly aren't the only animals that get the blame for their owners' failings (not blaming your grandma!).

I think it's brilliant that Gizmo's got so many friends of all sizes, could you work with one of them to teach him to sit when they're picked up? Even though this might have been a one-off, you never know if there might be another with a more reactive owner another day.

Yeah, I know who to ask. Just need to bump into her after I've bootcamped him all Easter Weekend.

My Grandma told me about some of the horrible, old school ways the horses were trained back then so I'm not surprised they were stressed. I remember one story was the trainer whipping a horse when it went under a tree so that it would learn not to eat the leaves because they were poisonous.

We used to get loads of people picking up their small dogs in Flo's big park and I often used to comment that she'd had lunch, that got a little boring so I just smile now. Odd thing is, now that Flo wears her "Deaf" high vis they don't tend to pick them up so often now... Wonder why.

Can't offer any better advice than that given sorry

small dogs are a tough one eh

I haven't read all the comments but when I walk bella people cross the road and 9 times out of 10 it's the little dog giving it the big I am I just say to bella leave it walk on her ears go up and tbh bella just wants to play bella doesn't mind dogs smaller than her but anything bigger than her she will stare them out and sometimes even growl don't even know why