Choosing a Dog Breed

Choosing a dog breed or choosing to have a pet dog at all is a very important decision. You need a lot of research to do in order to find out what dog breed is suitable for you and your family, and whether to really get a dog or not.

These are some important points to consider in choosing a breed of dog to own.

1. Time - Dogs are social animals, they need adequate time of bonding and interacting with their master/owner. Playing or training them several hours a day would be enough but If you don't have enough time; consider getting a pet fish or bird.

2. Space - Do you have enough space to accomodate your dog? If you live in a small apartment,make sure you can give your dogs their needs because some dogs do not do well in a very small space. Make sure you give them a lot of exercise. But there are some dogs that can do well in living in apartments ,for example some mastiffs are very docile that you can leave them do nothing while you're gone.

3. Lifestyle - If you're living a very sedentary lifestyle don't get a working dog such as Border Collies, Jack Russel terrier, Labrador retrievers and other performance dogs. They require a lot of physical activities. Not giving them their canine needs would result to boredom that will result to unwanted and destructive behavior which all of us owners don't want to happen. If you still want to get a dog consider some toy breeds or other breeds that are docile in nature.

4. Training - Regardless of the breed you choose, training is essential, we don't want our dogs to develop destructive and undesirable behaviors. Through training, we can make our canine friends good pets. If you think you cannot fulfill this obligation of training your dogs, it's better to not get a dog at all.

5. Grooming - If you could tolerate dog hairs scattered in your house, if you don't have allergies, it's ok to have furry dogs such as a Chow chow, Poodle, Shi Tzu or a Golden retriever. These dogs require a lot of grooming. If you are prepared to allocate money for grooming furry dog breeds then go get one.

6. Dog Gender- Choosing a dog whether if it's a male or female has it's consequences. If you're going to choose a male, be prepared for escape acts as male dogs can smell females in heat several miles away. They are also prone to dog aggression because of high levels of testosterone specially breeds that are known to be dog aggressive such as the terrier group, specifically the American Pitbull Terriers, American Staffordshire Terrier, the English Bulldog and others that exhibits high levels of dog aggression. If you're going to get a female, be prepared for unwanted guests to circle around your house when she's in heat.

If you're looking for dogs that performs for a specific purpose such as guarding, herding, sports, tracking,retrieving and protection purposes go to akc.org or ukc.org to know specific breeds that performs these particular tasks that I have mentioned.

If you don't have enough time,space,or money to take care of the needs of your future pet dog specially a purebred one, consider cancelling your plan of getting one but if you insist why not adopt a mutt or rescued dog from an animal shelter.