MY DAUNTLESS LITTLE DOGS ALWAYS AIM HIGHER

I AM AMONG countless other dog owners gripped by an important story in last week’s Mail.

Under the headline ‘Does your pooch have “small dog complex”?’, this revealed research indicating that, when marking territory, smaller male dogs lift their legs at an angle up to ten degrees wider than large dogs. This means that their pee hits a spot at a height typically reached by their much bigger fellow canines.

According to the lead researcher of this fascinating paper in the Journal of Zoology, Dr Betty McGuire, the reason might be that these small dogs want to give the impression that they are much bigger than they are, and thus deter possible pooch attackers.

This conclusion was disputed by Carys Williams of the Dogs Trust, who said the smaller dogs ‘may just be raising their legs higher to cover the mark that a bigger dog had left behind’.

I can exclusively reveal this not to be the case. We have two male Chihuahuas (father and son): I have on more than one occasion left a jacket hanging over a chair and later discovered that one or other of our tiny pets has sprayed at an improbably high angle to douse the hem of the garment — which I had unwisely thought to have been out of range. And I have the dry cleaning bills to prove it.

But I also wonder about Dr McGuire’s explanation. Chihuahuas, in my experience, are fearless when confronted by much larger hounds.

Far from having ‘small dog complex’, they seem to think they’re giants.