No barky little rat dogs

Let's just keep helping them to evolve larger.
https://www.archaeology.org/news/10584-2...e-dog-size

Barky little rat dogs, that's funny!

For decades we had dogs 150#+, Rotties and a Cane Corso. Fantastic breeds. as we've aged we've been downsizing and our old guy is a 90# AmStaff. We recently got a Staffordshire Bull Terrier whose mature weight should be near 30#. Now when we'd talk to the breeder we could hear the barking in the background. She hasn't stopped. Our old dog never barked, but she taught him how. Now they bark at each other as part of play. Yeah, barking little rat dog. Except her breed was developed for the bull baiting pits. The AmStaff was too small for America so from her breed they bred the larger AmStaff. Both breeds are very human oriented, hers maybe more so. She MUST have human companionship so it seems. If she hasn't had the laying on of loving hands she'll come and find me and bring herself to my attention.

edit: Oh, why the Staffordshire Bull Terrier? Because they've been described as a large dog trapped in a small body. It's an apt description for her. She has no problem telling me off when I'm expressing my displeasure at something she's done. She seems to not know fear and we must keep her on leash out of doors. We wish we could give her her freedom, but we just don't dare (yet).

Yeah! I have a neighbor who has a miniature poodle that weighs 11#. My cats weight more than that. They named the dog Zeus, the chief Greek god.
Although I call such small dogs "a piece of a dog", that poodle has an attitude that matches his name. He thinks he rules the neighborhood.
Small dogs make up for their size by having a big bark.
I have always had cats since I got married, but we have had two big dogs: a 95# black lab mix and a 65# full size golden doodle. Big dogs only bark when required. The dogs got along great with the cats.

Thats interesting churchilllafemme  - then as now, working dogs have to be suited to the job they're required to do and I'm guessing the dogs got bigger because they needed to be.  Larger animals cost more to keep in terms of food so theres little chance that people got bigger dogs just because.  

On. the subject of happy poodles, conventional wisdom holds that the breed gets happier as it gets smaller.  We've had 2 standard poodles that weighed in around 60-65 pounds and they weren't particularly vocal.  I've seen Standard Poodles over 90 lbs which is on the larger end of the breed's range.  

Theres lots of anecdotal evidence as to who gets what breed of dog and why and I think its probably much more complicated than that - if you sit and watch people and their dogs walk by there does seem to be some evidence that people and their dogs often tend to resemble each other