Why Small Dogs Are Harder to Train (And It’s Probably Your Fault)
Let’s start with something that might sting a little: small dog syndrome isn’t something your pup was born with. You taught it to them.
Here’s what happens: Your Pomeranian lunges at a German Shepherd, and you scoop them up instead of working through the behavior. Picking them up feels easier than training them through it. Every single time you make that choice, you’re teaching them that lunging works. You’re rewarding exactly what you want to stop.
Think about it from their point of view, though. The world really IS scarier when you’re seven inches off the ground! Your Chihuahua isn’t being a drama queen when they freak out about passing feet, bicycle wheels, or another dog’s mouth right at their eye level. They’re closer to all the things that could hurt them. Fear hits different when the threats are that big compared to your tiny body.
Here’s where things get even trickier: you create a feedback loop without meaning to. You spot another dog coming. Your hand gets tighter on the leash. Your breathing changes. Your Yorkie feels all of it travel down that lead and thinks, “Uh oh, danger must be coming – my human’s acting weird!” Their behavior gets worse. You started the whole thing.
And remember those behaviors you thought were adorable when they were eight weeks old? The jumping, the nipping, the barking that made your friends laugh? At eight months, they’re still doing it because you’re still rewarding them. What was cute in a puppy is actually a problem in an adult dog. But your dog has no clue the rules changed – you never taught them anything different.
Positive Reinforcement Fundamentals (Scaled Down, Not Dumbed Down)
Tiny dogs need tiny treats. We’re talking 3-5mm pieces for a Chihuahua. Not those big chunks made for Labradors. Do the math: a 3kg dog doing ten minutes of training with regular-sized treats will eat their whole day’s worth of calories before you’ve taught them anything!
Why marker training works so well:
• The click or “yes” bridges the gap when your hand can’t reach fast enough
• Your Westie is already thinking about something else by the time you bend down
• The marker tells them exactly which behavior earned the treat, even with a two-second delay
Small dogs need better rewards more often. This isn’t about spoiling them. Their tiny bodies burn energy differently than big dogs. A piece of kibble? Boring. A tiny cube of chicken? Now we’re talking!
The three-second rule matters a ton: if you didn’t catch them doing it, you’re just confusing them. This is extra true for breeds with shorter attention spans like Pomeranians. They’ve already forgotten what they did. Your correction hits whatever they’re doing right now, which is probably something totally innocent.
Picture a Pom who knocked over the bin five minutes ago. You come home, see the mess, and tell them off. In their mind, you’re mad about them sitting quietly on the sofa. That’s what they were doing when you started yelling!
Handling and Touch Training (Because Everyone Will Pick Them Up Wrong)
Teach “lift” as a word before strangers grab them the wrong way. Say the word and give treats while you support their chest and bottom properly. This way they learn to stay still instead of wiggling or snapping. This isn’t optional – every vet visit, every grooming appointment, every grandparent who visits will involve being picked up. You want that to be calm, not scary.
Getting them used to nail trimming, ear cleaning, and teeth brushing needs to start early. Small dog dental problems cost serious money. Imagine a Yorkie needing teeth pulled at age five because nobody taught them to tolerate tooth brushing. That’s a thousand pounds you didn’t need to spend – and your poor pup going through surgery they didn’t need.
No pick-up zones during training help more than you’d think. If they learn that jumping and barking gets them lifted to safety, you just rewarded the exact behavior you’re trying to stop. Let them figure it out on the ground.
Getting them comfortable with vet and grooming handling pays off for years. Yorkies and similar breeds need professional grooming their whole lives. Teaching them to stay calm while someone holds them, to hold still while someone works near their face, to let strangers touch their paws – that’s not extra. That’s the difference between a calm groom every six weeks and needing them sedated because they’ve become impossible to handle.
I’ve seen dogs who never learned this – imagine a three-year-old Maltese who needs sedation every single groom because nobody spent five minutes a day touching their paws when they were young. What a nightmare for everyone involved!
Breed-Specific Quirks (What Works for a Westie Won’t Work for a Chihuahua)
Terrier breeds– Yorkies, Westies, Cairns – were bred to work on their own and hunt small animals. Expect them to chase things and ignore you sometimes. They’re not being stubborn. They’re doing exactly what hundreds of years of breeding designed them to do! Use really good rewards and shorter training times, because you’re competing with their instincts.
Chihuahuas and other lap dogs bond super intensely to one person. This makes training easier with their favorite human but you need to deliberately get them used to other people, or they’ll start guarding. If only you can walk them, only you can trim their nails, only you can feed them without them growling, you’ve created a problem that limits their world and yours.
Pomeranians and Papillons are smart but get overwhelmed easily. They’ll learn fast. They’ll also learn the wrong things fast. Timing matters more with these breeds – one sloppy try where you accidentally reward the wrong thing, and boom, they’ve learned it.
Flat-faced small breeds like Shih Tzus and Pugs overheat quickly. Training sessions need to be shorter and cooler, especially outside. A fifteen-minute session in nice weather is fine for a Westie. It’s dangerous for a Pug.
The Big Three Behaviour Problems (And How to Actually Fix Them)
Teaching “quiet” only works if you first teach “speak” on cue. You need a behavior to stop. Capture the bark, make it happen on command, reward it, then teach the opposite. And fix what’s causing it: boredom barking needs more fun activities, alert barking needs them to get used to the trigger, demand barking needs you to stop giving them what they want when they bark.
Leash reactivity starts with creating distance. Cross the street. Don’t try to tough it out. Give high-value treats before they react, not after. The goal is to slowly build calm behavior around triggers, and you can’t do that if you’re close enough that they’re already over the edge and lunging.
House training problems come from two places: small bladders and you being inconsistent. Puppies under four months need to go outside every two hours. But the real problem? Small accidents feel “easier to clean up,” so owners get lazy. They’re not easier. You’re just teaching them that going indoors is okay.
Separation anxiety prevention starts with crate training as a safe space, not punishment. Build alone-time slowly from thirty seconds. Don’t make leaving or coming home a big emotional event – no dramatic goodbye, no big excited hello. Calm and boring is what you want.
Picture a scenario: you make a huge fuss every time you leave, telling your Papillon you’ll miss them, giving kisses, acting sad. You’re basically telling them, “Something terrible is about to happen!” No wonder they panic when you go.
Training Gear That Works at Small Scale
Harness over collar for training, always. Small breeds have delicate windpipes – especially Yorkies and Poms – and a front-clip harness gives you control without choking them. Look for XXS or XS with four adjustment points, because a harness that doesn’t fit right is worse than useless.
| Gear | What to Look For | Why It Matters |
|---|---|---|
| Harness | XXS/XS, front-clip, 4-point adjust | Protects delicate windpipe |
| Long line | Lightweight, 15 feet | Practice recall without running |
| Treat pouch | Hip-level, one-hand open | No fumbling during training |
| Gates/pens | 16-18 inches tall | Right height to contain and see |
Long lines for recall training should be lightweight. Imagine a 15-foot line that weighs almost nothing, not the heavy horse training line from the farm store that your Westie will spend the whole session trying to drag around. They need to practice coming when called without you running after them, and a proper long line makes that possible.
Treat pouches that don’t bang against their heads matter more than you’d think. You need something at your hip that opens with one hand and holds tiny high-value treats without squishing them. Fumbling with a plastic bag while your Papillon loses interest isn’t training – it’s just frustrating for both of you.
Baby gates and exercise pens sized right help with house training and management. A 24-inch gate is too tall for a Chihuahua puppy to see over. Sixteen to eighteen inches is perfect – high enough to keep them in, low enough that they understand it’s a boundary.
What Consistency Actually Looks Like
Everyone in your house uses the same words. “Down” and “lie down” and “get down” are three different things to your dog. Pick one and make everyone use it, or accept that you’re teaching three separate behaviors and wondering why they seem confused.
The two-week rule: most small dog behavior problems took weeks to develop through mixed messages. Expect at least that long of perfect consistency to fix them. You didn’t create this overnight. You won’t fix it overnight either.
“Sometimes” is worse than “never.” If jumping on guests gets them attention even once out of ten times, you’ve put them on a variable reward schedule – the hardest kind to break. Slot machines work the same way. Consistency means every single time, not most times.
Here’s the honest truth: imagine a scenario where your Chihuahua jumps on nine guests and gets ignored, but the tenth person thinks it’s cute and pets them. In your dog’s mind? “If I keep trying, eventually someone will pet me!” You just made the problem ten times harder to fix.
Training isn’t a six-week project and done. Imagine building five minutes of daily practice into your routine forever, the way you’d brush their teeth. That’s what keeps good behavior going long-term. The dogs who “forgot” their training didn’t forget – their owners stopped practicing.
