How this site works
TheBreedList is a reference for 45 dog breeds across 8 breed groups, plus 26 head-to-head matchups. It exists because breed research runs in two useless directions: the official breed pages describe every dog as devoted and eager to please, and the forums describe every dog as either perfect or a catastrophe. Neither tells you that the breed needs 150 minutes of hard exercise a day or that the coat blows twice a year. This site puts the numbers and the complaints in the same place.
Where the trait scores come from
Each breed gets 10 scores from 1 to 5 — energy, trainability, shedding, grooming, barking, tolerance of kids, dogs and cats, apartment suitability, and how forgiving the breed is for a first-time owner. They are compiled from published kennel-club breed standards and national breed-club documentation, then normalized so a 4 for shedding means roughly the same thing on a Husky page as on a Corgi page. The size, weight, height, lifespan, coat, and exercise figures (30 to 150 minutes a day across the catalog) come from the same sources.
Scores describe a breed, not a dog. Breeding lines pull hard in both directions — a working-line Shepherd and a show-line Shepherd are close to different animals — and every breed produces individuals who ignore the average entirely.
Where the pros and cons come from
There is no test kennel here and we are not going to pretend otherwise. Nobody on this site has raised 45 breeds. The pros and cons on each page are summarized from public owner discussions: breed subreddits, owner forums, long-term owner write-ups, and the “is this breed right for me” threads that breed clubs and rescues answer over and over. When hundreds of owners independently mention the same 5am zoomies, the same destroyed baseboards, or the same vet bill, that earns a bullet. Summarizing is editorial work, and we try to keep the wording as blunt as the owners wrote it.
Prices and health lists
Puppy price ranges are typical asking prices from breeders who health test — treat them as a bracket, not a quote, and know that a rescue or a breed-specific rescue group costs a fraction of it. The health entries are conditions the breed is prone to and that responsible breeders screen for. They are not a prediction that your dog will get them, and they are not veterinary advice. Use them as the list of test results to ask a breeder to show you.
What this site does not do
We do not sell puppies, list breeders, or take payment for placement in any ranking or matchup. No breed sits higher because someone paid for it. We also do not rank breeds against each other overall, because “best breed” is not a real question — the matchups pick a winner only for a described owner, and usually tell you both dogs are wrong if you are gone eleven hours a day.
Keeping it current
The breed data was last reviewed on July 30, 2026. Breeds get added, popularity rankings move each year, and price brackets drift. If something reads as wrong — a trait score that does not match what owners of that breed report — that is a data bug worth fixing, not a position we are defending.