Microsoft's Breed Identifier Tool Is Like Shazam for Dogs

Many pet owners are choosing to adopt rather than shop, which means the breed (or breeds) of the dog they bring home is often a mystery. Canine DNA tests are the most accurate way to identify your pooch's genetics, but they aren't cheap. For a free, fast, and fun way to guess your dog's breed, try this image-based search tool from Microsoft Bing.

All you to need to use the dog breed identifier is a picture of your pup. After you upload a photo or snap a new one through the webpage, Bing performs a reverse image search to determine which dogs most closely resemble yours. Based on this data, the tool guesses which dog breeds your pet may belong to.

After I plugged a photo of my pet Chihuahua mix into the search engine, Bing told me he was a match for a Chihuahua, Corgi, and dingo. It got his primary breed right, but the other two guesses were wrong. The tool doesn't claim to be an accurate way to ID your dog, however. The breeds it brings up are meant to be visual matches, and they don't necessarily have anything to do with genetics. Uploading different pictures of your dog can also give you different results. You can play with the website here to find your pet's doggie doppelgängers.

For every golden retriever and French bulldog you see on the street, there are many dogs that are harder to identify. Mutts aren't the only canine companions that lack name recognition; here are some underrated dog breeds you may not know about.