I didn't know what to vote as I love big, medium and small dogs. My childhood dream was an Irish Wolfhound and they don't come much bigger than that and I'm in love with the Finnish Spitz, nicely medium.

But for many reasons the dogs I actually own are small to tiny, can't get much smaller than an Affen puppy. One of the best things about small dogs is that you can have more of them without having to move house and buy a new car.

All you guys who think you'd trip over one should stop worrying, you just don't and they certainly don't catch you in the back of the knees like my friend's Elkhounds or bowl you over like our favourite Lab friend. So I have to say that other than at agility (when Pepper and I had different ideas about the best way to run a course ) I've had more tumbles with bigger breeds.

J

I've owned big, medium and small, and very much prefer a dog in a solid 15-20 pound package to any other size. Part of this is my penchant for keeping them close or on my lap (without losing circulation to my lower extremities) but the like of small is also about the love of having a "pack" instead of just one or two. In a small home as I have a pack of medium or large dogs just would not work.

mix for me, as i have both small and large.
Size isn't the issue the nature and characters of the breeds are the appeal to me.
I have grown up with medium to larger dogs, although i have also been around smaller breeds (family dogs)
from my experence your more likely to get blocked by a large dog than trip over the smaller breeds.

I love my cavaliers so my vote is small.
Although If i had a large property i would love to have a German Shepard.

Some of 'em are in those show-rings Shona!!

I've voted large simply because we've always had large dogs and it's what I'm used to.

I imagine our next few dogs will be large dogs, although we would look at rescues so would take any size dog that was right for us if we were right for it.

There are disadvantages to large dogs though, they eat more, collars, medications etc cost more. A few weeks ago I changed my car and I had to take my tape measure to the garages with me just to make sure Max would fit!

did you have to explain that when you were looking at the car!! i can see the advantages of small, especially cost-wise for food and such.

Yes! If I saw a car that I liked the sales person would say 'would you like to have a look inside?' they would go to open the driver's door and I'd have to say 'can I see the boot first please as we have a large dog'. I had a few raised eyebrows when the tape measure started coming out!

i bet they were trying to guess just how large!

When I bought my car back in 2006 they lent me the demonstration model for a weekend just so I could make sure it was big enough for the dogs. Although I only had the 3 back then. Good job there was room to spare.