Javier Milei's Pack of Giant Libertarian Dogs

The December 2026 issue of Reason explores Argentine President Javier Milei's accomplishments and what is yet to be done.

There's an old saying about the loneliness of politics: If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog. The same may be true in Buenos Aires.

Argentine President Javier Milei is known for advocating economic liberty and classical liberal ideals. He regularly cites and quotes famous libertarian economists in speeches. And he has shrunk Argentina's bloated government, cutting spending and regulations in a bid to blunt the country's sky-high inflation. Judged strictly on that measure, his efforts have worked, cutting annual inflation from 211 percent down to 33 percent in less than three years. Milei is arguably the world's foremost elected advocate for, and implementer of, small government.

Although he likes his government small, he prefers his dogs very, very big.

Milei is reportedly the proud owner of five English mastiffs, an ancient British guard dog breed that commonly weighs in at more than 200 pounds.

After a surprising success in a 2023 presidential primary, Milei thanked his dogs, calling them his "four-legged children." But they're nobody's kids. His current gang of huge hounds consists entirely of clones of a single dog, Conan, named for the barbarian famously played onscreen by Arnold Schwarzenegger. After the original Conan passed away, Milei, who had previously banked the dog's genetic material, paid a reported $50,000 to have him cloned.

Dog-cloning procedures typically produce just one viable dog, but in this case the process produced at least five—by some reports six, one of whom apparently died young. (One report suggests only four dogs now remain, though this is unverified.)

In keeping with his free market philosophy, Milei named four of the dogs after a trio of libertarian economists: Murray, after Murray Rothbard; Milton, after Milton Friedman; and Robert and Lucas, after Robert Lucas Jr. A fifth dog is named Conan, after the original. Milei, who has no children, has said that the cloned Conan is "literally a son to me" and likened the other four to grandchildren.

It's not hard to see why a maximalist with libertarian tendencies like Milei might appreciate this specific breed of dog. English mastiffs are gentle giants, known for being calm and loyal but also watchful and vigilant. They are protectors of persons and property who can have a surprisingly fine-tuned sense of who is and isn't a threat, and where exactly the boundaries of one's lands begin and end. If the minarchist vision of the night-watchman state had an animal avatar, it would be the English mastiff.

English mastiffs are bodyguards and property managers. They are also pretty good friends and companions. That's clearly how Milei sees his dogs. Since his rise to political prominence, he has talked repeatedly about how the original Conan was his best friend, a comfort in times of loneliness who remained loyal and never left his side, even during difficult moments. Milei puts up with his pets' big-dog shenanigans, saying on television in 2018 that his "house is like Kosovo….In two weeks, they've eaten almost four armchairs." The largest of the dogs is 220 pounds.

Mastiffs are known for being strong-willed and sometimes stubborn-minded, partly because of breed personality and partly because of sheer size. Unlike many smaller dogs, which can be picked up or moved around by force, mastiffs can, in some sense, do whatever they want, because they have the ability to knock you over if they disagree. Every interaction with a mastiff is a negotiation, an exercise in convincing them to agree to your terms. Convincing a mastiff to sit, stay, lie down, and stop eating the couch is pretty good training for the back-and-forth exchange of a market economy.

In a profile of Milei's relationship with his dogs that this piece draws from, The New York Times noted that "Argentine news outlets have also reported that Mr. Milei has privately said that he has received strategic advice from his dogs." When asked, Milei did not flatly deny that he sometimes takes advice from his pets.

As the owner of two bullmastiffs (a similar though not quite as large breed of English giant made by combining the English mastiff with the English bulldog) I'll just say that this is not, perhaps, quite as strange as it sounds. Large dogs have humanlike qualities simply by virtue of their size; they weigh and take up as much space as a person. Mastiffs also have large eyes and short noses, giving them a more human appearance. They are comforting, thoughtful presences.

My bullmastiffs sat quietly nearby while I wrote this article, watching me type; at least once while composing, I found myself talking to them. In their silent, expressive, constantly watchful faces, I found something that made it easier for me to think and write. So if Milei is taking economic policy advice from his dogs, the results speak—or perhaps bark—for themselves.

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