The French bulldog has been named the most popular dog breed in the United States for the third straight year, the American Kennel Club says, continuing a shift in breed preferences that began when the Labrador retriever ceded the top spot in 2022 after more than three decades of dominance.

The AKC, the country’s largest registry of purebred dogs, publishes its rankings annually; the registry’s most recent public accounting covers a span of years identified in its dataset from 2004 through 2024. That dataset includes numerical entries for 202 dogs in the record associated with these rankings, offering a long view of registration patterns and visibility for a broad set of breeds.

The French bulldog’s three-year run at No. 1 — 2022, 2023 and now 2024 in the AKC’s listings — marks a clear change in the registry’s headline ranking. The Labrador retriever, which held the top spot continuously from 1991 through 2021, fell to second place in 2022 and remained below the French bulldog in the subsequent editions of the list. Because the AKC’s ranking is grounded in its registration data, that move reflects changes in which breeds people are registering with the organization as well as shifts in breed visibility and interest.

Across the AKC’s publicly released lists, familiar names continue to appear in the upper tiers. The golden retriever, German shepherd, poodle, dachshund and pug are among those that remain prominent in the registry’s accounting. The broader array of breeds identified in the reporting highlights the diversity captured in the AKC’s records: alongside the perennial favorites are small, sporting and herding types such as the Chihuahua, Finnish Lapphund, pumi and greyhound.

The registry also noted the arrival of a newly recognized breed. “The newest breed, which emerged just this past year, is the Danish-Swedish farmdog, a companion dog that loves to work and enjoys a challenge,” said Brandi Hunter Munden, Vice President of Public Relations and Communications for the American Kennel Club. That recognition was one of the formal outputs the AKC included alongside its annual rankings, underscoring the organization’s ongoing role in evaluating and, when appropriate, adding breeds to its roster.

Hunter Munden placed the AKC’s recognitions in a broader context for prospective owners and observers of breed trends. “There’s over 400 dog breeds in the world, but the AKC only recognizes ones that meet its criteria,” she said, a reminder that the registry’s list is a curated subset of global canine diversity and that its annual rankings are drawn from that defined pool.

The AKC’s multi-year listings include discrete references to several years — including 2013, 2019 and 2020 — culminating in the current 2024 accounting. Those timestamps in the reporting serve to map how breed registrations have behaved over time within the registry’s records, offering a baseline for comparing the present ranking to earlier patterns. The contrast between the Labrador retriever’s long-standing leadership and the French bulldog’s recent ascendancy is the most visible example of that longitudinal perspective.

In practice, the AKC’s annual list functions in two parallel ways: as a measure of registrations recorded by the organization and as an index of breed visibility. Registration counts capture the breeds that people formally register with the AKC; visibility includes broader cultural and market forces that can drive interest in particular breeds. The French bulldog’s position at the top of the AKC’s list for three consecutive editions is therefore the clearest metric presented in the organization’s latest public data.

The AKC’s reporting, while focused on the rankings themselves, also underscores the organization’s ongoing administrative role. As the largest registry of purebred dogs in the United States, the AKC publishes its lists annually, manages records for recognized breeds and evaluates applications for new breed recognition under its established criteria. Brandi Hunter Munden appears as the AKC spokesperson in the material released alongside the rankings and provided the direct statements included above.

Beyond the headline change at No. 1, the AKC’s public lists continue to reflect a mix of long-familiar favorites and newer entries into the registry’s fold. The appearance of breeds across small, sporting and herding categories within the dataset — from pugs and dachshunds to greyhounds and pumi — illustrates the range of canine types that remain present in the organization’s accounting. The addition of the Danish-Swedish farmdog demonstrates the AKC’s operational process of recognizing breeds that meet its standards and adding them to the roster from which future rankings are drawn.

For readers and prospective dog owners watching breed trends, the AKC’s annual rankings offer a documented snapshot of registration activity. For the organization itself, the main outputs of its yearly accounting process are the rankings, notes on new breed recognitions and the continued maintenance of its registry. In this cycle, the French bulldog’s third straight year at the summit of the AKC’s ranking stands as the principal conclusion of the group’s latest public data.

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Original reporting: view the original article.