How to choose a dog or cat breed for your home

Start with your week, not with the photo

Count the hours someone is at home on a normal weekday, the minutes you can walk and the money you can spend each month. A Samoyed and a British Shorthair both look wonderful; only one of them fits a couple who work ten hours a day.

Write the numbers down before you open a single listing. Most people who return a pet in the first year chose with their eyes, and the breed that photographs best is rarely the one that sleeps best while you are at the office. Three honest figures, hours alone, walking minutes and monthly budget, remove half of the breeds from your list in two minutes.

Use the breed pages the same way: every profile in our breed guide lists energy, grooming and shedding on a scale of five, together with the adult weight and the price range, so you can compare twelve dog breeds and twelve cat breeds against your own numbers rather than against each other.

How many hours alone can a dog or a cat handle?

A dog copes with four to five hours alone on a weekday once it is adult; a kitten or cat copes with a full working day if it has a second cat, a window and a few climbing places. The difference decides the species before it decides the breed.

Cavaliers, Pugs and Maltese are the dogs that tolerate quiet hours best, because they were bred to sit with people rather than to work. Retrievers, Shepherds and Corgis were bred to do a job all day, and a flat with nobody home until seven in the evening turns that drive into chewed furniture and complaints from the neighbours.

Among cats, British Shorthairs, Persians and Ragdolls are the calm ones. Bengals, Abyssinians and Devon Rex need a playmate; if you work away from home, reserve two kittens from the same litter rather than one.

Space, stairs and the size of your flat

Flats suit most cats and small or calm dogs: Cavalier, Maltese, French Bulldog, Poodle. Large and giant breeds need a garden or very long walks, and giants should avoid stairs in the first year while the joints are still forming.

Square metres matter less than what is in them. A sixty square metre flat with a balcony, a daily hour outside and a human who likes walking is a better home for a Welsh Corgi than a house with a garden where nobody goes out. For a cat, vertical space counts double: one tall scratching post and a shelf by the window replace a whole extra room.

If you live above the third floor without a lift, cross the Bernese Mountain Dog and the German Shepherd off the list. Carrying a thirty kilo puppy up the stairs for twelve months is the rule for large breeds, and few families keep it.

Breeds for homes with children and other pets

Golden and Labrador Retrievers, Cavaliers, Ragdolls, British Shorthairs and Maine Coons are the breeds most often chosen for homes with young children. Bengals and Abyssinians prefer older children who play, not toddlers who grab.

The reason is temperament, not size. A Golden Retriever forgives a pulled ear; a Shiba Inu does not, and will walk away from a child for the rest of the week. For families with a baby on the way, choose a breed with a long record of patience and plan the arrival for a calm month, not the month of the birth.

With an existing dog or cat at home, the second pet should be the opposite sex and at least a year younger. Two adult males of a guarding breed are the pairing we see fail most often; a kitten joining an adult cat succeeds in almost every home within two weeks.

Allergies: which breeds sensitive people tolerate

No breed is allergen-free, but Maltese, Poodle, Devon Rex, Siberian and Russian Blue are tolerated by most sensitive people. Meet the pet or test a fur sample before reserving; we arrange both.

The allergen in cats is a protein called Fel d 1, carried in saliva and skin, not in the hair itself. Siberians produce less of it, which is why a sensitive person who reacts to a Persian often lives comfortably with a Siberian. For dogs the trigger is dander, and a coat that does not shed, like the Poodle's or the Maltese's, keeps most of it on the dog instead of on the sofa.

Spend an hour with the breed in a closed room before you pay a deposit. One visit tells you more than any list, and our breeders expect the request.

Climate, coat and the summer problem

Flat-faced dogs and heavy-coated breeds struggle in hot summers; homes in Mediterranean and Gulf climates do best with short-coated or small breeds and indoor cats.

A Samoyed in Dubai lives indoors with the air conditioning from May to October, and a French Bulldog in Athens walks at six in the morning and after sunset. Both are possible, but both are a daily discipline. If your summers pass thirty degrees for more than two months, a Labrador, a Poodle or a short-coated cat gives you the same companionship without the routine.

Cold is the easier direction. Siberians, Maine Coons, Samoyeds and Bernese Mountain Dogs were built for it, and a family in Oslo or Helsinki has the widest choice of all.

Budget beyond the purchase price

Food, insurance, vaccinations, grooming and a yearly vet visit cost 60 to 150 EUR a month for a dog and 40 to 80 EUR for a cat. Poodles and Persians add grooming; giants add food.

Delivery is a one-off cost that depends only on your address, from 150 EUR by road within the Balkans to 2,200 EUR for a long-haul flight with a nanny; the delivery page shows the estimate for your country before you reserve. What people forget is the first year: a bed, a crate, two courses of puppy school, neutering and the booster vaccinations add roughly 600 to 1,000 EUR on top of the monthly figure.

• Small companion dog (Maltese, Cavalier, Pomeranian): 60 to 90 EUR a month
• Large family dog (Retriever, Shepherd, Samoyed): 100 to 150 EUR a month
• Short-coated cat (British Shorthair, Russian Blue, Siamese): 40 to 60 EUR a month
• Long-coated or large cat (Persian, Maine Coon, Siberian): 60 to 80 EUR a month

A five minute shortlist method

Take the twenty-four breeds, cross out every one that fails your hours, your stairs or your summer, and you will be left with three to five. That is the right number to read about in depth; more than that and the decision goes back to the photos.

Then look at who is actually available. The puppies and kittens listed this month come from breeders we have visited, each with the parents' test results and a ready date, and an advisor who has met the litter can tell you which individual puppy is the calm one and which is the explorer. For a first dog, the calm one is almost always the better choice.

What to do before you reserve

Ask for a video call with the breeder, with the puppy or kitten on camera and the mother in the room. Watch how the animal reacts to a new voice, whether it approaches or hides, and how the breeder handles it. Ten minutes on camera settle more doubts than a week of reading.

If the breed is new to your household, read our guide on a puppy's first week at home or on settling a kitten in before the pet arrives, so the room, the food and the first vet visit are ready on day one.

Frequently asked questions