[Fenixeye]

My Fiance and I are looking at getting a dog. I have grown up with dogs all my life and she has never had one.

I am looking for some suggestions that would be somewhat allergy friendly. We don’t really like any of the hypo allergenic dogs. My father and I both have bad allergies, but we had an Old English Sheepdog growing and had no issues. My first suggestion was another Old English since I knew my allergies would be okay, but she wasn’t too keen on getting a big dog like that as her first dog.

Does anyone have any suggestions about some other types that are medium size and could be allergy friendly like an Old English?

 

[RonE]

It is likely that the Old English seemed allergy friendly only because you lived with the dog and built up some immunity.

My wife, my daughter and I (and my late father) all suffer from some degree of dog allergies. In my wife's case, it's more serious because she is also asthmatic. But she does fine with our two (previously three) dogs. One of them sleeps in our room and the other sleeps in our bed. If we have overnight dog guests (which was a frequent occurrence prior to the current pandemic) she would have much more difficulty.

My adult daughter does fine with her own dog in her own home but has allergy flair-ups if she is in our home with dogs she's not normally exposed to.

None of these dogs is what would be referred to as "hypoallergenic" (which is a misnomer, since no dog is truly hypoallergenic.)

My wife went through a few years of allergy shots and the first dog we got as a family was a 116-pound double-coated lab that shed like it was his life's work.

 

[Knute]

Try looking into the low or non-shedding breeds. There are several medium to large dogs with low shedding.