The world’s most beautiful dog breeds

The world’s most beautiful dog breeds

Money.co.uk can reveal that the world’s most beautiful dog is the Cairn Terrier. Not only are Cairn Terriers affectionate and playful, but they’re the most statistically beautiful dogs out there with a golden ratio score of 88.7%.

Placing second are West Highland White Terriers with a score of 87.5%. Not only do Westies make great family pets as they work well with children, but they’re just 12.3% off the perfect Golden Ratio proportions. 

Third place goes to Border Collies, scoring an impressive 86.7%. 

Ranking fourth most beautiful is the Rhodesian Ridgeback with a score of 86.0%, followed closely by Welsh Terriers with a Golden Ratio score of 85.9%.

The world’s least beautiful dog breeds

Money.co.uk also found that the least statistically beautiful dog breed of all those analysed is the Shih Tzu. Despite the breed’s popularity over recent years, Shih Tzus only achieved a beauty score of 41.0%, quite a way off the perfect Golden Ratio proportions.

The second-least beautiful breed is the Bullmastiff with a score of 48.7%. Third place goes to the French Bulldog, with the breed scoring 54.3%.

Salman Haqqi, pet insurance expert at money.co.uk, comments on the findings:

• “Of course, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and regardless of the ranking position of a dog’s breed, every dog no matter its shape or size should be appreciated. One of the most important ways to care for any dog is to make sure it is fully insured so that any unforeseen expenses can be easily taken care of, allowing you and your pets to enjoy your time together without worry.”

*The Golden Ratio is a mathematical formula found in nature, architecture, and even music, that indicates a balanced and aesthetically pleasing composition. The closer the proportions of each dog breed to the proportions of the Golden Ratio, the more statistically beautiful the breed is considered to be.

Methodology

1. Money.co.uk wanted to find out which dog breeds are the most statistically beautiful using the Golden Ratio.

2. They identified 138 of the most popular dog breeds, based on the 2020 new registrations according to The Kennel Club.

3. To ensure that the final rankings considered the most popular breeds, a threshold equal to the median value of the breed registrations in 2020 was set, and all breeds below this value were filtered out.

4. A list of close-up images and related information was then gathered for each breed, with three face-on images per breed analysed.

5. From the images, facial landmarks were assigned, including: the top of the head, the nose, both ears, and both eyes. The respective co-ordinates were collated to measure snout length, the space between the eyes, the length of the dog’s head, the space between the top of the head and the eyes, and the space between the ears.

6. The ratio of the distances obtained were then compared with the Golden Ratio’s dimensions. The similarity of each dog breed’s proportions in comparison to the Golden Ratio was calculated as a percentage out of 100, where 100% represented the perfect Golden Ratio proportions and therefore the most statistically beautiful dog breed.

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Credit: https://www.money.co.uk/pet-insurance.htm