Companies and Brands

This Is the Hardest Dog Breed to Train

Douglas A. McIntyre

Published: December 9, 2021 7:30 am

The Pet Ownership & Demographic Study released by the American Veterinary Medical Association shows that about 63 million households have a dog. Ownership can be expensive. The average cost of a puppy is $1,300. The annual cost of owning most dogs is between $1,400 and $4,300. This includes food, toys, grooming and vet visits. Among the costs associated with dog ownership is training, in some cases.
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Dogs are trained at different levels. Some owners just want their dogs to sit and come when called. Training a “seeing-eye” dog to help a blind person takes well over a year of intensive training, and some of the dogs who begin these programs eventually are rejected.

24/7 Tempo picked the hardest dog breed to train. We certainly don’t want to deter anybody from getting a breed we considered as a pet. They have many wonderful and varied attributes, including loyalty, intelligence and playfulness. But to enjoy their better qualities requires addressing their more challenging ones, and that calls for careful training from an early age.

To choose the hardest dog breeds to train, 24/7 Tempo compared listings of relative difficulty published by a number of specialist websites, including TopDogTips, PetCareRX, CertaPet and PuppyToob.

The hardest dog to train is the bullmastiff. As the name suggests, this breed is the result of bulldog and mastiff crosses. It was bred to guard country estates and game preserves from poachers. It is large, tipping the scale at up to 130 pounds, and is powerful and intimidating. As a result, the bullmastiff requires careful training.

Click here to see all the dogs hardest to train.