I've met Dr. Dunbar and attended a seminar with him. He is a very nice man and some great ideas but a lot of them focus on larger dogs. I had a nice chat with him about some of the unique challenges in dealing with small dogs, especially ones that are under 4 lbs. He admits that he deals with larger dogs and doesn't have as many suggestions for the tiny pups. He recommends getting a dog by 7 or 8 weeks to start the socialization process and I tried to explain that some toy dogs are barely eating on their own and are sometimes too small to go to new homes. He feels that many problems with toy dogs, including house breaking go back to the fact that they are too old by the time we get them. I guess it is just a dilemma that toy dog owners have to deal with. He is a very nice man and truly loves dogs. |