The Most Loyal Dog Breed In The World

It's always difficult to compare good dogs, because by definition, all dogs are good dogs. However, if someone pointed a gun at you and forced you to define the absolute most loyal boy/girl out there, how would you proceed? Would you think long and hard about various dog breeds' companionship qualities? Would you ask dog owners, only to find out that every single one of them thinks their own dog's breed is the greatest? Or would you ask science to analyze and compare the loyalty qualities of all dog breeds? (Please don't do that last one, we have a feeling that mazes and electric shocks would be involved.) 

Luckily, you won't have to do any of those things. After all, we've already looked into it and discovered the answer. Without further ado, the most loyal dog breed in the world is ... 

... Anyone's guess, unfortunately. It turns out that absolutely everyone seems to have their own opinion about the subject, and almost every article seems to root for a different canine companion as the most loyal one. For Cheat Sheet, it's the "profoundly loyal" Japanese Akita. Play Bark Run thinks that the playful and energetic, yet fairly hard-to-train boxer tops the loyalty charts. According to Animal Roll, there's no dog more loyal than the Golden Retriever. Canine Weekly, on the other hand, goes with the gigantic, goofy St. Bernard, thanks to the breed's rescue dog roots.

It's worth noting that opinion seems to have a lot of sway in these rankings — for instance, Entirely Pets names the Rough Collie as the most loyal breed, and they openly admit that it's a Lassie thing. Also, some dog breeds do make the top spot more than once, and both I Heart Dogs and Rover even name the protection-oriented Great Pyrenees as the most loyal breed. Then again, if we're going with consensus alone, there are several breeds that appear on multiple lists — Beagle, German Shepherd, and the aforementioned Rough Collie and Great Pyrenees all receive numerous mentions. So, maybe we should just give all of them the joint award of the Most Loyal Boy and call it a day. And by "all of them," we mean every dog. Clearly, that's the only possible takeaway, here: Every dog breed is the most loyal dog breed. (But seriously, if you really need to come up with a winner, we suppose it's technically one of the aforementioned four.)