A list of the most popular dog breeds on Instagram

After the American Kennel Club (AKC) released their most popular (and least popular) dog breeds, from OurFitPets.com, here are the 10 most “Instagramable” dog breeds:

This list does come close to coinciding with the AKC list of their most popular breeds:

Many who hashtag a family pet on Instagram do so harmlessly. The only problem with some of the Instagram pages – usually named for the dogs themselves, is that many of these so-called influencers spend a great deal of time and sometimes money getting clicks, which their prime objective. If it ended there, I wouldn’t much care. However, the truth is that too many of these folks have become more influential than veterinarians, veterinary technicians/nurse or certified animal behavior consultants, though they greatly have zero knowledge. But they appear important solely because they have many followers. Ad agencies are even drawn to spend money supporting some of these pages for product placement. However, there’s most often no expertise, so the result is that it’s not unusual for misleading advice to be given, same on other social media platforms, not only Instagram. If you follow social media pet advice, there are veterinary professionals with pages as well as certified animal behavior consultants (such as myself), or check out the veterinary colleges for information or the American Veterinary Medical Association and other legit organizations.

What about dog trainers? That’s a problem right now too. There are a select few but incredibly influential dog trainings expounding punishment techniques and/or use electronic or shock collars and because they have followers they are sadly perceived as experts. Ensure dog trainers you follow advice from are using positive reinforcement techniques and are members of appropriate dog training associations.