The Most Aggressive Dog Breed In The World

There are facets of life that'll get your blood racing like when a strange looking dog rushes you, barking madly and baring its fangs like it knows, deep down, that you don't have any silver bullets. There's a reason that everyone is at least a little bit scared of an angry pup. Between stories like Stephen King's Cujo and the primal understanding that they're all basically wolves that we taught to eat biscuits, we're all instilled with, at the very least, a healthy instinct to cross the street when a loose hound comes our way.

Now, if you want to play things by the numbers, it can be helpful to get a grasp on which breeds of dog are the most likely to try and turn your insides into warm, wet dog chow. Gird your loins and prepare to enter the world of the unsettling, because things are about to take a turn for the primal.

As far as anyone can tell, just going by the numbers, dachshunds are the most vicious little slaughter rodents that the human race has ever had the gall to refer to as "domesticated." A little background: first of all, "aggressive" and "dangerous" don't mean the same thing. If you're looking for the breed that puts the most people in the hospital every year, it's still pit bulls all day, baby.

But dachshunds, chihuahuas, and other small breeds, may be more genetically predisposed to aggressive, territorial behavior, according to the Baltimore Sun. They state that diminutive pups show more signs of willingness to throw down, with one in five reportedly snapping at strangers and nearly one in three trying to take a bite out of another dog. They also mention that standard, pre-adoption temperament testing tends not to pick up on these behaviors, which isn't particularly reassuring.

The takeaway here: if your dog says "Yo quiero Taco Bell," just do whatever it says. The thing is a maniac.