How small is small? My dog, liam, literally tore fancys backend apart and fancy was no small baby - he was 15lbs of beautiful, and now he's gone because my naivety in thinking I had them secure enough to leave for 10 minutes. Do not under estimate any size dog.
My other dog, skye, she protects them and stood over top of speedy yesterday while a hawk was zooming in on her. I came out just in time to scare off the hawk and skye thought I was mad at her - she came crawling to me as I scooped up speedy. I petted Skye and told her she was good, so she knew I wasn't. The others she had herded into the pen. I still keep a close eye on them, and put them in their pen if I'm going in for any length of time where I can't see them.
Liam is part pug and 5 years old, skye is pit/lab 8 month old puppy