FrenchBulldogs.co.uk
Who tops the list, and by how little
Each column is that year's published top ten with the recorded count. A breed missing from a year is not zero — it is outside that year's published ten, which is a different thing and the tables do not pretend otherwise.
| # | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | American Bulldog90 | English Bulldog50 | French Bulldog51 | French Bulldog39 |
| 2 | Staffordshire Bull Terrier71 | French Bulldog37 | English Bulldog37 | Staffordshire Bull Terrier37 |
| 3 | French Bulldog59 | XL Bully37* | Staffordshire Bull Terrier31 | Crossbreeds33 |
| 4 | Jack Russell45 | Staffordshire Bull Terrier34 | Chihuahua26 | English Bulldog27 |
| 5 | Chihuahua40 | American Bulldog19 | German Shepherd16 | German Shepherd22 |
| 6 | English Bulldog25 | Dachshund16 | Border Collie13 | Dachshund16 |
| 7 | Cocker Spaniel24 | Shih Tzu15 | Crossbreeds11 | Border Collie14 |
| 8 | German Shepherd23 | German Shepherd15 | Cane Corso9 | Cocker Spaniel10 |
| 9 | Yorkshire Terrier14 | Labrador15 | Dachshund7 | Chihuahua8 |
| 10 | Husky13 | Chihuahua14 | Cocker Spaniel1 | Cane Corso8 |
* The XL Bully's appearance coincides with its ban being announced and phased in. See below. Source: Direct Line, whose pet insurance brand was folded into Aviva in 2025.
The gaps between breeds are a few dogs wide
First place in 2025 was 39 dogs and second was 37. At that size, "the most stolen breed in Britain" turns on a couple of incidents, and it changes hands easily — the French Bulldog was third in 2022, second in 2023, first in 2024 and 2025.
| French Bulldog | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Recorded thefts | 59 | 37 | 51 | 39 |
| Rank | 3 | 2 | 1 | 1 |
The national total, and the years nobody can give you
Why the fall might not be a fall
These numbers exist because somebody asks all forty-five police forces the same question every year. Fewer of them answer each time.
| Year | Forces answering | Response rate | Reported | Adjusted |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | 32 | 71% | 1,573 | 2,212 |
| 2021 | 27 | 60% | — | 2,645 |
| 2022 | 23 | 51% | 1,631 | 3,191 |
Across those three years the reported figures move by 3.7%. Corrected for who answered, the same period is a 44.2% rise. That is the single most important thing on this page, and it is almost never said alongside the headline.
One year, five answers
For 2020 alone there are five published UK figures. None is wrong. They count different things from different numbers of forces.
- 1,504 — Pet Theft Taskforce, 33 of 43 England and Wales forces
- 1,573 — Walliss, Flynn and Allen, 32 forces, 71% response
- 2,000 — Pet Theft Taskforce, its own rounded estimate for England and Wales
- 2,355 — The Kennel Club, 36 of 45 forces
- 2,438 — Direct Line, extrapolated to all 45 forces
And at one force, in one year. For Lincolnshire in 2017, an insurer reported 152 dogs stolen, Direct Line reported 27, and the researchers' own request to the force itself found 24. The researchers put that in their own methodology, which is why it is quotable rather than gossip.
The XL Bully is not a theft trend
It is absent from the 2022 list, third in 2023 with 37 thefts, and off the national list by 2025. That window is the ban being announced and phased in. A breed becoming restricted changes how many exist, who holds them and how they are recorded, all at once. Reading that spike as thieves wanting them is the easiest mistake on this page to make.
Where these figures come from
The ranked tables and national totals are Direct Line, whose pet insurance brand was folded into Aviva in 2025's, from its annual FOI round. An annual Freedom of Information request to all 45 UK police forces. The national total is extrapolated to cover forces that do not answer. One lineage rather than one instrument: the extrapolation, the response rate and the accompanying survey have all changed across the years.
The response-rate correction is from Walliss, J., Flynn, M. & Allen, D., 'Recent patterns and trends in UK dog theft', The Howard Journal of Crime and Justice. The 2020 comparison draws on the Pet Theft Taskforce report and the Kennel Club's own FOI round.
What this is not. It is not a count of dogs stolen in Britain. It is a count of what some police forces recorded and disclosed, extrapolated by an insurer. Pet theft is not a crime category — we have written separately about why nobody knows the real number.
Use this
Free to use with a link back. The underlying figures belong to the publishers named above.
Cite this page
FrenchBulldogs.co.uk, "The most stolen dog breeds in the UK", https://www.frenchbulldogs.co.uk/data/most-stolen-dog-breeds/ (reviewed 2026-09-10).
Common questions
What is the most stolen dog breed in the UK?
On the most recent published figures, the French Bulldog, with 39 recorded thefts in 2025. It has topped the list in two of the last four years. The counts are small and the gaps between breeds are a handful of dogs, so the ranking changes easily.
Is dog theft falling?
The reported numbers fall — 1,626 in 2025 against a peak of 2,760 in 2021. Whether thefts are falling is a different question. Police forces answer these Freedom of Information requests less every year, and researchers who adjusted for that found a 44.2% rise across 2020 to 2022, over a period the unadjusted figures show as a 3.7% change. A fall in the number may be a fall in answering.
Why does the XL Bully appear and then disappear?
It goes from absent in 2022 to third in 2023 with 37 thefts, then off the national list by 2025 — the same window as the ban being announced and phased in. That pattern fits a change in the number of these dogs and in what happens to them far better than it fits a change in what thieves want, so it should not be read as a theft trend.
Why do different sources give different numbers?
Because they count different things from different numbers of forces. For 2020 alone there are five published UK figures, from 1,504 to 2,438 — a spread of 62% for the same calendar year. None is wrong; they are answers to different questions.