feist (n.): a small dog (chiefly dialect)

Most of you are familiar with the word “feist” as the lone name of Toronto-based chanteuse Leslie Feist. (By the by, is there a word for single names, or for people who go by only one name, like Madonna, Cher, Beyonce, Shakira, Prince, Feist, et al? I guessed at “unonym” as a word for such a name, but that appears only to be attested as a neologism meaning “a word with a one letter difference from another word.”) Were you aware, though, that in addition to being German for “fat” or “stout,” “feist” is actually an obscure English word meaning a small dog? And furthermore, did you know that it derives from the obsolete phrase “fisting hound,” from the obsolete verb “fist,” meaning “to break wind?”

I pose the question to the gods of the internet, who have infinitely more time and patience than I do, as to why there needed to be a noun phrase to denote “farting dog” in English, and why small dogs in particular are thought to be more flatulent than large ones.