The French bulldog was Denver’s most popular dog breed in 2024, holding the No. 1 spot for the third consecutive year in American Kennel Club registration statistics.

The ranking is drawn from the AKC’s annual city-by-city registration release. In that tally the French bulldog led the list, followed by the golden retriever, the Labrador retriever, the German shepherd and the English bulldog.

Gina DiNardo, executive secretary of the American Kennel Club, commented on the local trend: “The French bulldog continues to feel all the love in Denver.” Her statement accompanied the AKC’s city-by-city registration release highlighting the breed’s standing across multiple municipalities during the 2024 registration year.

The AKC’s breed profiles and materials describe French bulldogs as compact, flat-faced lap dogs that are well suited to apartment living and urban routines. French bulldogs and golden retrievers top popularity lists in urban Denver due to their adaptability to city living, compact size for apartments, and charming, low-maintenance personalities suited to diverse lifestyles. The AKC further characterizes the breed as charming companions that make “fantastic city-dwellers and are adaptable to many lifestyles,” language the organization uses when summarizing temperament and suitability for urban owners.

At the same time, the AKC and veterinary sources note specific health considerations for the breed. French bulldogs are a brachycephalic, or flat-faced, breed and face significantly higher risks of respiratory problems, including brachycephalic obstructive airway syndrome, as well as heat intolerance and breathing difficulty compared with longer-nosed dogs. Those health factors can sharply affect comfort, exercise tolerance and the need for veterinary care among individual animals.

The AKC compiles its city rankings directly from registration statistics submitted to and recorded by the organization each year. The Denver result for 2024 is one element of that wider dataset; the city-by-city breakdowns are intended to reflect which purebred dogs are most frequently recorded with the registry. As the AKC notes in its material, those figures measure registrations rather than the absolute number of all dogs in a city, so they reflect the preferences of owners who register their animals with the organization.

Denver’s preference for the French bulldog mirrors patterns the AKC has documented in other urban areas, where compact size, apartment-friendly temperaments and a reputation for being good companion animals often explain a breed’s popularity. Dog breed popularity rankings vary substantially by city: for example, a U.S. News analysis found French Bulldogs, German Shepherds, and Labrador Retrievers most popular in Houston, while Golden Retrievers, German Shepherds, and American Pit Bull Terriers lead in Dallas. Local reporting on the 2024 AKC rankings, including coverage in outlets such as Westword, summarized both the Denver list and how it fits into broader urban trends.

The continuity of the French bulldog’s top placement in Denver — three straight registration years at No. 1 — underscores how certain breeds can sustain local popularity over multiple reporting periods. The AKC maintains the national registry and issues the yearly lists based on its internal registration data; those lists provide a snapshot of breeder and owner choices among purebreds for a given registration year.

For prospective owners, breeders, and city planners tracking pet demographics, the 2024 city-by-city release offers a data point on how breed preferences map onto urban lifestyles. For Denver in 2024, the registration figures plainly show the French bulldog at the head of the pack, followed closely by several long-favored companion breeds in the city’s AKC listings.

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Original reporting: view the original article.