Although some allergy sufferers swear that they are allergic to one breed of dog and not another, there is little hard medical evidence to support it. What may account for that misconception is that some breeds shed more allergenic materials than others from their skin and saliva, while others produce a greater volume of saliva or skin cells. Nonetheless, the basic dog allergens responsible for provoking allergic symptoms are essentially the same from one breed to the next. This means that prolonged contact with dogs of any breed will eventually trigger allergy symptoms in susceptible individuals.

Confusion may arise when a dog owner who is accustomed to the ebb and flow of low-grade symptoms at home visits a neighbor and experiences a dramatic flare-up of his allergy when exposed to the neighbor's dog. The response is usually to blame the neighbor's dog erroneously and attribute the allergy to that specific breed. In actuality, the onset of the attack was the result of a more intense exposure to dog allergen at the neighbor's house rather than exposure to an altogether new kind of allergen.