25 Most Popular Dog Breeds of 2021

Choosing a Breed

There are many factors that determine which breed is right for you – such as how you live, how prone the breed is to illness, how much time you want to spend on your dog, how much it sheds, whether it needs to be especially child-friendly, how you want to interact with your dog, what size you prefer, and whether you want a companion dog, a hunting dog, or a working dog.

Skaffa Hund can now present a list from the Swedish Board of Agriculture (Jordbruksverket) of Sweden’s most popular dog breeds, based on the number of dogs registered in each breed up to and including 31 December 2020. The statistics do not include mixed-breed dogs (definition according to Jordbruksverket).

The Statistics

As of the end of February 2021, 725,000 dog owners in Sweden had about 985,000 dogs (including mixed breeds), of which just under 700,000 were pedigree dogs spread across 431 breeds (definition according to Jordbruksverket). Around 70% of all dogs are pedigree dogs.

Interest in buying a dog has increased over the past year as many people have been working from home due to the coronavirus pandemic. As early as April last year, more puppies began to be registered with Jordbruksverket. In December, the increase was a full 40 percent compared with the same month the year before. And this January, 23 percent more people bought a dog compared with the previous year.

A total of 71,500 new dogs were registered in 2020, the largest increase ever, at just over 14%.

The 25 Most Popular Dog Breeds

Here are the 25 most popular dog breeds:

1 LABRADOR RETRIEVER

2 GERMAN SHEPHERD

3 GOLDEN RETRIEVER

4 JACK RUSSELL TERRIER

5 JAMTHUND (SWEDISH ELK HOUND)

6 ROTTWEILER

7 BORDER COLLIE

8 CHIHUAHUA, LONG-HAIRED

9 CHIHUAHUA, SMOOTH COAT

10 FRENCH BULLDOG

11 COCKER SPANIEL

12 CAVALIER KING CHARLES SPANIEL

13 POODLE, MINIATURE

14 SHETLAND SHEEPDOG

15 AMERICAN STAFFORDSHIRE TERRIER

16 DANISH-SWEDISH FARMDOG

17 BICHON HAVANAIS (HAVANESE)

18 ENGLISH SPRINGER SPANIEL

19 YORKSHIRE TERRIER

20 STAFFORDSHIRE BULL TERRIER

21 DACHSHUND

22 FLATCOATED RETRIEVER

23 NORWEGIAN ELKHOUND, GREY

24 CHINESE CRESTED DOG

25 DREVER

You can also see, for example, that:

• The 10 most popular dog breeds account for just under 30%.
• The 27 most popular dog breeds account for about 50%.
• If you add up all the CHIHUAHUAS, they make up just over 4% and rank as the 3rd most popular type of dog. Doing the same for POODLES gives them 4th place with 3.5%, and for DACHSHUNDS 5th place with 3.2%.
• 51 breeds have fewer than 10 registered dogs.
• 146 breeds have fewer than 100 registered dogs.
• LABRADOR and GERMAN SHEPHERD, as usual, top the list of the most popular dog breeds, as they have done for many years. Incidentally, they are also the most popular breeds abroad.