Free · No sign-up · 20 species
What breed is my dog? Start with structure, not colour.
Visual breed identification of a mixed dog is unreliable — studies comparing shelter labels against DNA agree well under half the time, and dogs are routinely labelled with breeds they have no ancestry from. That is not a small point: in some places a breed label determines whether a dog is legal to own. This key works on structure, and it never removes mixed breed from the answer.
Dog Scanner Breed Identifier — Free★ 4.8 · 16 ratings · iPhone & iPad
- Structure, not colour
- Mixed breed always in the results
- Health notes on every breed
1.How big is the dog?
optionalWeight rather than height, since it is what people know. If it sits between two, skip the question.
2.What is the coat like?
optionalA thick double coat that sheds in clumps is structurally different from a long single coat, and it separates the northern breeds from the spaniels and setters.
3.How are the ears carried?
optionalNote the natural carriage. Cropped ears are surgery rather than a breed character, and they are illegal in many countries.
4.How long is the muzzle?
optionalHead proportion is what breed standards describe, and a flat face narrows the list to a handful of brachycephalic breeds immediately.
5.How is the tail carried?
optionalTail carriage separates the pairs people struggle with — a husky's sickle against a malamute's plume over the back, or a Border Collie's full low tail against an Aussie's bob.
6.Anything else stand out?
optionalPick anything that applies.
- Alaskan MalamuteWorking
- American Pit Bull TerrierTerrier
- Australian ShepherdHerding
- BeagleHound
- Belgian MalinoisHerding
- Border CollieHerding
- ChihuahuaToy
- DachshundHound
- French BulldogNon-sporting
- German Shepherd DogHerding
- Golden RetrieverSporting
- Great DaneWorking
- Labrador RetrieverSporting
- Pembroke Welsh CorgiHerding
- PoodleNon-sporting
- PugToy
- RottweilerWorking
- Shih TzuToy
- Siberian HuskyWorking
- Mixed BreedMixed
Stuck? A photo may be quicker.
Describing something you are looking at is harder than photographing it. Dog Scanner Breed Identifier reads the image directly, works offline, and does not need you to put the thing into words first.
Free · ★ 4.8 · iPhone & iPad
The breeds people mix up
Similar dogs, and the one character that settles each.
All breeds
Twenty breeds, plus the entry that describes most dogs.
Questions people ask
How accurate is guessing a dog's breed from its appearance?
Poor. Studies comparing shelter staff breed labels against DNA have found agreement well under half the time, and dogs are frequently labelled with breeds they have no ancestry from at all.
How do you tell a husky from a malamute?
Size and tail. A malamute is much larger and heavier with a plumed tail waving over the back; a husky is lighter with a sickle tail that curves up but does not lie flat. Blue eyes are common in huskies and disqualifying in malamutes.
What is a pit bull?
Not one breed. The term covers several breeds and a very large number of mixed dogs, and it is applied on appearance rather than ancestry. That matters, because in some places the label determines whether a dog is legal to own.
Are mixed breed dogs healthier than purebreds?
On average, for the inherited conditions concentrated in closed breeding populations. Mixed dogs still get hip dysplasia and cancer, but they are less likely to carry the specific recessive disorders a breed has fixed.
Do dog DNA tests work?
Considerably better than for cats, because dog breeds are genuinely distinct populations. Breed percentages on a mixed dog are reasonably reliable at the major-ancestry level and get noisier below about ten per cent.
What does the app do that this site does not?
It identifies from a photograph, which is quicker. This key is about which characters actually distinguish breeds — and about being straight that most dogs are mixed and a guess is a guess.