Anonymous wrote:I have a medium sized lab, used to have a medium sized golden retriever. Both dogs are/were very friendly to other dogs, and most big dogs we met on are friendly and trained because the consequences of not training your big dog are more severe to the owner (getting yanked around at a minimum) so medium and big dog people pretty much have to train their big dog to maintain control. Little dogs on the other hand are a mixed bag. Some are trained and friendly, and we are always happy to interact with them, but lots will growl, bark, lunge at my dog and are poorly trained and socialized, and the owner just picks them up (which actually reinforces the behavior and validates the little dogs bad reaction to seeing another dog), so yeah, a bigger percentage of little dogs that we encounter are problematic because the owner hasn't put in the correct training and socializing effort--treating them more like cats than like dogs. I don't hate little dogs, but I never know how an interaction with one will go because a lot of the people that own them don't put in the work.
The training thing is huge. I know very few small-dog owners who take training seriously, and they often think it's cute how their dog barks or lunges or snarls at bigger dogs or whatever because it shows how "brave" the dog is. When what it shows is that their dog is badly socialized and poorly trained.