The trends & stats

The most common dog breeds across all ages

Labrador

6.9%

Jack Russell

4.5%

Cocker

4.3%

Staffy

4.2%

Chihuahua

3.6%

The most common dogs across all ages are the Labrador and the Jack Russell. But look at the puppies: among dogs under one year, the French Bulldog and Cockapoo had surged into the top three, a sign of the designer-crossbreed boom. The pack has both the classics and the new favourites.

The most common puppy breeds

Frenchies

7.0%

Cockapoo

6.2%

Labrador

5.8%

Cocker

4.7%

Chihuahua

4.2%

Now the other end of the lead. These four are in the pack too, yet you would be lucky to pass one in the park. Each makes up the tiniest sliver of Britain's dogs: the Bloodhound, with only around fifty puppies registered a year, the gentle Mastiff at roughly a hundred, and three more native breeds the Kennel Club counts as vulnerable. Choosing one is a quiet act of rescue.

And the rarest breeds in the pack

Bloodhound

0.004%

Mastiff

0.007%

Wolfhound

0.01%

Old English

0.024%

Rarity estimated from Kennel Club puppy registrations (2024). Most-common figures: RVC VetCompass, O'Neill et al. (2023).