Dog Breeds

Hi, my name is Sue Walton, and I love teaching others my insider tips to dog training. While you can learn the basics of what you need to know from my articles, I sincerely recommend you get hold of a copy of 'Secrets to dog training' which was formerlly known as 'SitStayFetch'. Daniel Stephens provides you with breed specific  training tips and secrets quite unlike anything else you will find.

The sporting breeds

This group of breeds is reknowned for its hard working members, who love the outdoors! They are natural bird and game dogs, and all make great retreivers. The four members of the sporting group are pointers, retrievers, spaniels and setters. Sporting breeds are very active and require alot of room to run and play, or they can develop boredom related issues and bark, chew or become destructive.

Pointers include:

German Shorthaired, German wirehaired, Pointer, Vizsla, Weimaraner, Wirehaired pointing Griffon.

Retreivers include:

Golden Retreiver, Curly coated Retreiver, Flat coated Retreiver, Labrador Retreiver, Chesapeake Retreiver.

Spaniels include:

Water Spaniel, Cocker Spaniel, Clumber Spainel, English Cocker, English Springer, Field Spaniel, Irish water Spaniel, Sussex Spaniel, Welsh Springer.

Setters include:

Brittany Setter, English Setter, Gordon Setter, Irish Setter

The Hounds:

This group of dogs is famous for its hunting abilty, and its skills in terms of scent and sight ability. Hounds like quick moving game, and can hunt anything from rabbits to rodents to large deer and pigs and even lions and moose. They are generally easy going now their hunting duties are largely bred out of them, and make ideal family pets for this reason. There are three groups, namely the sight, scent and Large Game hounds.

Sight Hounds:

Afghan Hound, Basenji, Borzoi, Greyhound, Ibizan Hound, Irish Wolfhound, Pharoah Hound, Saluki, Scottish Deerhound, Whippet.

Scent Hounds:

Basset Hound, Beagle, Black and Tan Coonhound, Daschund, American Foxhound, English Foxhound, Harrier, Otterhound, Petit Basset Griffon Vendeen.

Large Game Hounds:

Norweigen Elk Hound, Rhodesian Ridgeback.

The Working Group:

As the name suggests, this group is primarily bred for hard work and they certainly excel at being loyal employees. Many have been bred for exact and definite purposes, and are highly intelligent and focused workers, which require specific training to get the best out of them.

The working breeds include Sled dogs, Personal Protection dogs, Rescue, and Guard dogs.

Seld/Draft:

Alaskan Malamute, Samoyed, Siberian Husky, Bernese Mountain Dog, Swiss Mountain Dog.

Guard Dogs:

Akita, Bullmastiff, Great Dane, Great Pyrenees, Komondor, Kuvasz, Mastiff, Rottweiler

Personal Protection Dogs:

Boxer, Dobermann Pinscher, Giant and Standard Schnauzer.

Rescue Dogs:

Saint Bernard, Newfoundland, Portuguese water dog.

The Herding Group:

These breeds are supremely intelligent, and highly respectful of an owners commands. Bred specifically as farm hands, they make amazing pets when under the command of a firm owner. They must have space to move or they might become agitated quickly. The groups are sheep herders, and cattle herders.

Sheep Dogs:

Australian Sheperd, Bearded Collie, Belgian Malinois, Belgian Sheepdog, Belgian Tervuren, Border Collie, Collie, German Shepard, Old English Sheepdog, Puli, Shetland Sheepdog.

Cattle Dogs:

Australian Cattle Dog, Briard, Bouvier des Flandres, Cardigan Welsh Corgi, Pembroke Corgi.

The Terriers:

These are probably the most personality filled bunch in the dog world, and the dominant trait is determination, to the point of stubborness! Owning a terrier is awesome, training one is difficult, and they must be disciplined early to be a good pet. The vast array of breeds and their small sizes makes them very popular as family dogs. They fit under two types; vermin and fighting.

Vermin Terriers:

Airedale, Australian, Bedlington, Border, Cairn, Dandie Dinmont, Fox, Irish, Kerry Blue, Lakeland, Manchester, Miniature Schnauzer, Norfolk, Norwich, Scottish, Sealyham, Skye, Soft Coated Wheaten, Welsh, West Highland White.

Fighting Terriers:

American Staffordshire, Bull Terrier, Miniature Bull Terrier, Staffordshire Bull Terrier.

Non Sporting Breeds:

Many of the dogs were bred for specific work tasks, but in many parts of the world this work is no longer required so they have formed companion breeds. They all tend to be individual in terms of personality, so its best to get specific advice before committing to one of these breeds. For instance, there is ALOT of difference between the personality of the bichon, a cuddle rug of a dog, to the chow-chow which is one of the potentially most agressive fighting dogs around.

Bichon Frise, American Eskimo, Boston Terrier, Bulldog, Shar-pei, Chow Chow, Dalmation, Finnish Spitz, French Bulldog, Keeshond, Lhasa Apso, Poodles, Shiba Inu, Schipperke, Standard Schnauzer, Tibetan Spaniel, Tibetan Terrier.

Toy Breeds:

Alot of this family are just miniature versions of working breeds, that are too small and fragile to work or hunt, so have become masters at being adorable pets. Their size means they are suitable for small houses and small budgets for feeding. The downfall with small size is small-dog syndrome! They can become quite the little tyrants if not trained properly and have big time behaviour issues that belie their size. Proper training is all-important.