A UK vet has revealed four breeds he wouldn’t recommend to first-time dog owners.
In addition to his veterinary work, Ben the Vet makes videos on TikTok, where he has around 210,000 followers.
In a recent video, she shared the four breeds she said she wouldn’t recommend as a first dog, explaining that her opinions were based on her nine years of working in her practice. During this time, she has met thousands of people and their dogs.
Ben, who often shares videos about animal welfare practices, specifically noted in the clip that the information he was sharing was his opinion and that he was “talking about breeds that aren’t the best choice, necessarily.”
In the video, Ben said the first dog on his list was a border collie. He explained: “These dogs thrive in a working environment, but if you put them in a normal home, they can get very bored.”
UK-based vet Ben the Vet (pictured) revealed four breeds he wouldn’t recommend to first-time dog owners in a recent TikTok video
“That boredom can manifest itself in many different problematic behaviors, destructive behaviors.”
These, she continued, include things like “digging, barking, overly compulsive behaviors like tail chasing (and) signs of aggression.”
Ben concluded: “If you’ve never had a dog before and don’t really know what to expect, there are a lot of animals to deal with.”
The second breed on his list was the beagle. According to the vet: “This may come as a surprise to a lot of people, but the reason I’ve included them is because they are quite a difficult breed of dog to train.
“They are quite stubborn dogs and, as hunting dogs, they follow their nose, so they get into everything.”
On top of that, he added, they have “something of a reputation for being a breed of escape artists.”
Ben concluded: “So, you definitely need to have a secure yard if you have a beagle, and it can be quite difficult to housetrain them. So, (if you have a) beagle, you may not be able to take them for walks off-leash.”
Moving on to the third breed on his list, he revealed that it was the Dalmatian. The vet explained: “In the 1990s, after a re-release of the Disney cartoon series 101 Dalmatians, their popularity increased.
The four breeds she listed in the TikTok video (pictured) included Dalmatians, border collies, beagles and huskies.
‘Over the next 10 years, their popularity dropped by 97 percent, and that’s because those people who got Dalmatians because they looked so cute and were so well trained in the movies… then realized that actually this dog is a handful, and then those people didn’t get Dalmatians again. And a lot of those people would have been first-time dog owners.’
The fourth and final breed on Ben’s list was the husky. “Getting a dog is a big commitment and will change your life, but getting a husky is something completely new and they need a lot of exercise,” Ben explained.
He added that these dogs are bred to pull sleds “over long distances in cold weather.”
This means that if you put them in a home where you will leave them alone for long periods of time and only go for a half hour walk once a day, they will become overweight, bored, and a problem.
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