Dogs

444 photos across 19 breeds

🐕 Dogs have lived alongside people longer than any other domesticated animal — the archaeological record puts the relationship at fifteen thousand years at least, and probably a good deal longer. Everything that followed is selective breeding, which is why a chihuahua and a great dane are the same species.

That range is the point when choosing one. Breed is a reasonable predictor of size, coat and exercise need, and a rough predictor of temperament, but it says less than people expect about an individual dog. A working line and a show line of the same breed can want very different lives — a field-bred English springer spaniel and a show-bred one are barely the same proposition.

🧠 What a breed was made to do is the most reliable predictor there is, and it is the one people discount. A terrier bred to kill vermin will kill vermin. A livestock guardian bred to make its own decisions at three in the morning will make its own decisions. A bloodhound will take its nose over your recall, and a border collie with nothing to herd will find something. None of that can be trained out; it can only be given somewhere to go.

⏱️ Size is not the same as exercise need, and the two get confused constantly. A greyhound is a big dog that sleeps most of the day and wants two decent walks. A jack russell terrier weighs six kilos and will still be looking for something to do at ten o'clock at night. If you are choosing by how much dog fits in the house, you are answering the wrong question.

🧬 The three that actually decide it: how many hours a day the dog will have company, how much coat you are willing to deal with for the next twelve years, and how much dog you can physically handle on a lead when it has decided otherwise. Breed follows from those. Almost nobody regrets thinking about them and a great many people regret not.

Any breed Labrador retriever (18)Afghan hound (3)Airedale terrier (3)Akita (3)Alaskan Klee Kai (3)Alaskan malamute (3)American bulldog (3)American eskimo dog (3)American hairless terrier (3)American pit bull terrier (3)Aussiedoodle (3)Australian cattle dog (3)+168 more — use the search

Dogs feed

SizeToy & small 17 Medium 14 Large 10 Giant 3

CoatShort 201 Medium & double 214 Long 96 Curly & wavy 54 Wire 44 Hairless 6

FromBritish Isles 16 Europe 23 Asia 3 Crossbreed 2

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Border terrier

Umber III was promoted to overwhelmed airport baggage manager; unfortunately, a basket of yarn unravels around everything.

FrostyOtter · 1 week ago

Belgian Laekenois

Onyx V was promoted to ambitious roadside lemonade vendor; unfortunately, dozens of ping-pong balls escape at once.

FrostyOtter · 1 week ago

Basset fauve de Bretagne

Clemence was promoted to scientist monitoring a bubbling but harmless experiment; unfortunately, a tiny red carpet refuses to lie flat.

FrostyOtter · 1 week ago

Affenpinscher

Onyx was promoted to weather forecaster surprised by its own forecast; unfortunately, a basket of yarn unravels around everything.

FrostyOtter · 1 week ago

Before you get a dog

Time, not space, is the real constraint. Most breeds cope with a flat and a routine; almost none cope with eight hours alone every weekday.
Exercise needs vary enormously and are the most commonly underestimated figure. A border collie or a dalmatian needs two hours and a job; a bulldog needs two short walks and shade.
Grooming is a running cost. A poodle needs professional clipping every six to eight weeks for life and a bichon frise every four to six, and a double-coated breed will cover the house twice a year regardless.
Flat-faced breeds — bulldogs, French bulldogs, Boston terriers — carry real breathing risk and overheat dangerously fast. It is worth choosing a moderate muzzle within the breed.
Ask any breeder which health screening the parents have had, by name: hips, elbows, eyes, heart, and the DNA tests relevant to that breed. A breeder who cannot answer is telling you something.
Where the dog comes from matters as much as which breed it is. A puppy that cannot be seen with its mother, in the place it was born, is a puppy to walk away from — and rescue is worth looking at first rather than last, because a five-year-old dog of known temperament is an easier animal than an unknown eight-week-old.
Check what is legal where you live. Several of the breeds listed here are banned or licensed in some countries, insurance and rented housing keep their own lists, and none of that is discovered comfortably after the dog arrives.
The socialisation window closes early — roughly sixteen weeks — and what a puppy meets calmly in that time it will probably accept for life. It is the one thing that cannot be done later, and it matters more than any obedience class booked for six months' time.
Budget for the whole dog, not the purchase. Food, insurance, vaccination, parasite treatment, grooming, kennels or a sitter, and the one unbudgeted veterinary event that most dogs have at some point. The cheapest part of a labrador retriever is the labrador.

General guidance, not veterinary advice. Anything about a specific animal is a question for a vet who has seen it.

Dog breeds worth knowing about

A place to start rather than the whole list. Every name is a page.

Labrador retriever
The most popular dog in most of the English-speaking world, and popular for a reason: biddable, food-motivated and genuinely good-tempered. The catch is appetite — labs gain weight faster than almost any other breed, and a fat lab is a lame lab by ten.
German shepherd
Clever enough to be a problem if underemployed, and the classic case of working and show lines diverging sharply. Ask for hip and elbow scores, and read them against the breed median rather than against zero.
French bulldog
Charming, compact, and the breed that best illustrates why a flat face is a health question rather than a look. Choose the most open nostrils and longest muzzle in the litter, and expect a dog that cannot cope with heat.
Border collie
Two hours daily plus real mental work, which is the part people skip. A collie run for two hours and left with nothing to think about becomes fitter, not calmer.
Golden retriever
Softer and hairier than a labrador, with the same sociability and rather more coat. Cancer rates in the breed are high enough to be worth asking a breeder about directly.
Dachshund
A hound on short legs, with the stubbornness that implies. The long back is the thing: keep it lean, discourage stairs and jumping down from furniture, and know that disc disease is common.
Cavalier King Charles spaniel
As affectionate as any breed going, and burdened with two serious inherited problems — mitral valve disease and syringomyelia. Heart-tested parents are not optional here.
Greyhound
The surprise of the list. Enormously fast for about thirty seconds and then asleep on the sofa for the rest of the day, which makes retired racers one of the easiest large dogs to live with.

Guides for dogs

The subjects that come up on breed page after breed page, written out properly.

Bloat: the emergency that kills in hours
Gastric dilatation-volvulus kills a healthy dog in hours. What it is, the signs to act on, which breeds are at risk, and what actually reduces it.
What a flat face costs
Brachycephalic dogs and cats have the same soft tissue in a shorter skull. What that does to breathing, eyes, teeth and heat, and how to choose better.
Merle, and the litter that should never be bred
The merle gene makes a mottled coat and, in double dose, deaf and blind puppies. What merle is, why merle-to-merle is avoided, and what to ask a breeder.
The health tests to ask a breeder for
A carrier of a recessive disease looks healthy. Which tests exist for dogs, cats and horses, how to read the results, and the answers that should worry you.
There is no hypoallergenic dog or cat
Low-shedding is not low-allergen. What actually causes pet allergy, why the claim keeps being made, and what genuinely reduces symptoms if you are allergic.
How to photograph your pet
Light, height, focus and patience — what separates a good pet photo from a blurred one, and how to handle black cats, white dogs and animals that never sit still.