Puppy Care

Learning about the types of small dogs can help narrow down the selection process for a new dog. The American Kennel Club (AKC), which is the principle breed registry in the United States, divides dog breeds into 7 categories, with the addition of the miscellaneous category. The latter is for breeds that only partially completed all the registration requirements.

The 7 classes of AKC recognized dog breeds are:

•  sporting
•  hound
•  working
•  terrier
•  toy
•  non-sporting
•  herding

Most of the small dog breeds are in the toy category, but there are quite a number in the terrier category, and some in the sporting, hound, herding, and non-sporting classes. There are no official AKC recognized small dog breeds in the working class.

What Do These Classes Mean?

Most of the breeds in these groups have some defining common characteristics. Some are classified due to practical skills like a great hunting or herding ability, (in the herding and hound groups). Others are there because of their size (toy dogs), or ancestry (terriers). The working and sporting dogs are not dissimilar to the medley racers in Olympic swimming – they are all-rounders, either at doggy sports, or excelling in the many skills needed for working dogs. The non-sporting group don’t seem to have much at all in common however. The exception being that they don’t fit well in any other category.

Breed Types

Sporting Dogs

Sporting dogs excel at hunting, although they make loyal and loving pets to the right owners. Sporting dogs were bred to hunt all types of small game animals, including birds, and they can hunt either on land or in the water. There are in this group twenty-seven breeds, including the English cocker spaniel dog breed, a type of small spaniel. Other breeds in this category are retrievers, pointers, setters, and other spaniels. Sporting dogs are high energy dogs, and need a lot of exercise and/or mental stimulation.

Hound Dogs

Dogs in the hound dog grouping have historically helped people in the hunt. In doing so, they were bred to take advantage of particular talents each breed had. Some hounds use smell, others sight or speed, to track their prey. There are twenty-three breeds in this group, which includes 3 small breeds – the whippet, basenji, and dachshund.

Working Dogs

Dogs classified as working dogs can be pets, however the reason they are called working dogs is because they provide some function for people, whether it be herding livestock, as a police dog, part of a paid entertainment act, or as a guide dog.

The AKC uses this broad definition another way. , in that any dog which was originally bred for a task which doesn’t fit into one of the other categories, is classified  by them as a working dog. There aren’t any small dog breeds in the working dog category.