This Is the Most Aggressive Dog Breed You Can Own

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Jun 1, 2:00PM EDT

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This Is the Most Aggressive Dog Breed You Can Own — © BrianAsmussen / Getty Images

Scientists in Finland researched aggression in dogs by breed. Of the 22 breeds that were included, one was picked as the most aggressive, based on a large sample. The name of the study was “Aggressive behaviour is affected by demographic, environmental and behavioural factors in purebred dogs.” The rough collie was the most aggressive breed.

“Aggressive” was defined in a spectrum from “biting people and other pets,” which can cause “medical or even lethal consequences for the victim” to “more common growling and barking.” The researchers pointed out that aggressive behavior among some breeds has caused them to be banned in certain countries. The study looked at over 9,270 dogs based on their reactions to humans. This was taken from a larger sample of data on 13,715 dogs. The data for the larger sample was gathered online. Only purebred dogs were included.

From the sample, 1,791 dogs ended up in the “high aggressive behavior” group and 7,479 in the “low aggressive behavior” category. The mean age of the dogs was 4.6 years, out of a range of two months to 17 years. More than half (53%) of the dogs were female.

Among the common characteristics of aggressive dogs, beyond breed, were male dogs and older dogs. The number of dogs in a family and body size were other variables. Additionally, “The dog’s body size was also associated with aggressive behaviour; small dogs had a higher odds of aggressive behaviour than medium-sized and large dogs, but there was no difference between medium-sized and large dogs.” “Fearfulness” also was listed as a reason for aggressive behavior.

The most aggressive breeds after the rough collie were the miniature poodle (toy, miniature and medium-sized) and miniature schnauzer. The breeds with the least percentage likelihood of aggressive behavior were the Labrador retriever, golden retriever and Lapponian herder.

We included the popularity of each breed where available from the American Kennel Club (AKC). For the breeds that do not have a profile in the AKC database, we included the rank for the closest breed with a note.

Click here to see the most aggressive dog breed you can own

22. Labrador Retriever
> AKC popularity rank: 1

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21. Golden Retriever
> AKC popularity rank: 4

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20. Lapponian Herder
> AKC popularity rank: .

19. Shetland Sheepdog
> AKC popularity rank: 27

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Staffy Puppy (CC BY-SA 2.0) by Sam Fox Photography

18. Staff. Bull Terrier
> AKC popularity rank: 81

17. Jack Russell Terrier
> AKC popularity rank: 72

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16. Smooth Collie
> AKC popularity rank: 40 (Collies)

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15. Chihuahua
> AKC popularity rank: 34

14. Finnish Lapphund
> AKC popularity rank: 165

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13. Border Collie
> AKC popularity rank: 32

12. Cairn Terrier
> AKC popularity rank: 73

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11. Pembroke Welsh Corgi
> AKC popularity rank: 11

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10. Other
> AKC popularity rank: .

9. Wheaten Terrier
> AKC popularity rank: 58

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8. Coton de Tulear
> AKC popularity rank: 80

7. German Spitz Mittel
> AKC popularity rank: 187 (Finnish Spitz)

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6. Chinese Crested
> AKC popularity rank: 79

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5. Lagotto
> AKC popularity rank: 88

4. Spanish Water Dog
> AKC popularity rank: 149

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German shepherd dog (CC BY 2.0) by Ronoli

3. German Shepherd
> AKC popularity rank: 3

2. Miniature Poodle
> AKC popularity rank: 6 (Poodles)

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1. Rough Collie
> AKC popularity rank: 40 (Collies)

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.