Size matters?

The (American version) Scottish Deerhound standard (if I remember right) says (or said) something about putting an upper limit on the size for males, because males could get too big to sprint after deer, but no upper limit was put on the female deerhounds because (the purebred) females did not grow too large to be clumsy and useless.

This implies that there is an ideal height, a point where (like in other things) the added height becomes a disadvantage because of the extra pounds per inch found in a taller animal.

From school you might have had a teacher lecture about how strong an ant is for it's size, but if an ant were the size of a horse, it could not move. Same principle.

For each thing, size has an advantage up to a point, after which it becomes a disadvantage.

Going into a hole after a fox? A 6 inch high pocket dog would not get stuck in the tunnel - but it could be easily killed by the fox. A 20 inch dog would out power the fox, but how would you get him into the fox's tunnel?

So important is the right size, not too big, not too, that I have read about terrierman who go for badgers (European badgers - our badger could kill dogs easily), who have different lines of dogs, some that fit into a female badger's den, and other slightly larger dogs to fit into male badger's dens.