Guidance you can understand.

Sources and photograph credit

We use breed organisations for standards, veterinary sources for health and scientific papers for population-level findings. Sources are collected at the end of each profile. Veterinary guidance may be UK-specific; confirm local recommendations with your own veterinary practice.

At a glance

Activity, experience and everyday suitability are editorial categories, not measured properties of every dog. Size filters use practical small, medium and large groups; breed organisations may classify differently. Missing figures and non-comparable barking information remain unknown.

Which dog fits my life?

The finder uses fixed rules. For breeds with documented needs for close company, the answer “2 to 4 hours alone” excludes that suggestion. Long unattended periods, an unresolved basic budget or insufficient exercise time stop recommendations. Size mismatches, marked prey drive around small pets and demanding herding work without experience exclude individual suggestions. Grooming, shedding, home environment and willingness to train then influence the assessment. The same answers give the same results.

A strong match means at least eight internal guidance points without a preference conflict. Experience, training, grooming, children and existing pets must also be answered. From four points we show partial matches; a grooming, training or housing conflict also limits the assessment to partial. This is not a probability of success. Results show the actual reasons and unresolved points, not percentages.

The rules award three points for enough exercise time, two for the preferred size, two for sufficient grooming time, one for aligned experience and two for sufficient training commitment. A low-shedding preference adds one point for a breed in that category and otherwise deducts two. A suitable flat adds one point; a housing conflict deducts one. Insufficient grooming time deducts three points, insufficient training two; a busy environment for a breed needing quiet also deducts two. Missing trait data limits the result to a partial match. Barking is not scored because comparable data is unavailable. The four highest eligible results are shown; stable breed identifiers resolve ties.

Suggestions are an initial guide drawn from our published directory. They do not replace meeting a dog and talking to knowledgeable people. Mixed breeds and rescue dogs may be a good fit too.

How we work

New profiles are published only after core facts, original text, image rights and health sources have been checked. We do not publish empty profiles or automatically generated filter landing pages. Please report errors through our existing support contact.