The best dog breeds (in my experience): Shelties

I know how sensitive people can get about their dog and trust me when I say that I am totally with you. I would quite easily "rage-kill" anyone who harmed my doge, so I understand this notion. When I make this list I want people to understand that I am not a veterinarian nor have I owned a great many dogs in my life (just one at a time.) However, these breeds are the best breeds that I have experienced in my life.

"Sheltie"

The Shetland Sheepdog or "Sheltie" originates from Scotland and much like most of the people I have met from there, it was fiercely loyal and very smart.

Our family dog from my childhood was a Sheltie and when we got her, she could fit in the palm of your hand. She was incredibly easy to train and by the time she was an adult she knew every trick in the book. When visiting, my grandfather taught her how to jump through a hoop on command in ONE AFTERNOON. She never forgot that trick and this is just amazing.

Our Sheltie never made a mess of the house and could reliably be left alone with a plate of steak in front of her and never touch it. She was also extremely attached to all of us, especially my mother who spent the most time with the dog by virtue of being a housewife. "Dusty" would be her shadow at all times and to the day that Dusty died, the dog would follow my mother anywhere she went. As kids we would have days on the calendar that Dusty was going to stay in our rooms written on the calendar. She always started in your room but after a few hours she would be at your bedroom door whining and scratching the door (in a docile way, she was too small to cause any damage) until you opened it for her in order for her to return to my mother's side.

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All the Shelties I have encountered have hair 3-4 inches long and while it requires some level of maintenance, it never seems to grow beyond this length. I'm sure it does grow beyond this length, but it must fall out (oh, they shed quite a lot so you need to be willing to deal with that)

The males are considerably larger than the females in this breed and while this is something you could just find on the internet I realized this when our next door neighbors just happened to have a male Sheltie around the same age as Dusty. He was quite a lot larger than "Dusty" but his temperament and intelligence was the same.

These dogs tend to be quite expensive: A Sheltie from a non-champion bloodline can be expected to cost $500 - $800. Registered AKC "champion bloodline" Shelties will fetch several thousand dollars easily. They are worth every penny.

Dr Stanly Coren, a globally renowned pet psychologist (yes, that is a real thing) ranks the Sheltie as the 6th most intelligent breed of dog on the planet. While i have not been exposed to the other 131 breeds, I can already tell you that I agree with Stanly.