dataviz

America's Dog Breed Rankings, 1991 to 2025

An interactive chart of every AKC breed's popularity rank by year, 1991 to 2025. Search any breed, click a line, and compare.

Editorial line chart on a warm parchment background titled America's New Top Dog, showing AKC dog breed popularity rank from 1991 to 2025. A terracotta line for the French Bulldog climbs from No. 82 up to No. 1, crossing a slate-blue line for the Labrador Retriever that holds the top until the early 2020s. Every other breed is a faint grey line in the background, and the right rail shows sepia portraits of the two breeds with their rank numerals.

An interactive version of this chart is here. Search any of the 202 breeds and trace its line yourself.

The French Bulldog sat at No. 82 in 1991, a pretty obscure breed, and then climbed almost without interruption to No. 1 in 2022, where it has stayed since. The dog it passed at the top was the Labrador Retriever, which had been America’s most popular breed for 31 straight years, the longest unbroken run in the rankings.

That was unusual; most breeds drift up or down a few spots a decade, which is why the field behind the two leaders reads as a nearly flat grey haze. The Frenchie’s line is the one long diagonal that cuts clean through the whole pack, from the bottom third all the way to the front.