Google searches are used as a proxy for popularity as it is the most popular search engine on earthy and its data is easily comparable across countries. The y axis in the following graphs show a six month average of monthly searches on Google and its partners up until Feb 2013.

Note that the curves do not show a constant decline (ie some lower placed dog breeds show higher search volumes. This is because the position of the dog breed was as per the popularity in February, while the actual volume shown is the average for the last six months.

America dog breed Popularity 2013

In America, the top fifteen dog breeds are all located in the top 34 'dog associated' searches on Google.

You will however see that after the first three dog breeds, the volume of searches for each breed declines very significantly.

The top five dog breeds in America at the start of 2013 are:  German shepherd (171,000), Pomeranian (100,250), Labrador retriever (59,083), German shepherd puppies (42,267), Yorkshire terrier (48,000)

Obviously this list shows that the German shepherd is a very popular dog in America. However along with that popularity there is likely to be a lot of clubs and organisations training and concentrating on this breed. This may cause a positive feedback loop where the volumes are over representative of what the actual ownership or involvement values are.

The shape of the curve is typical of high dog involvement countries in that the curve is very smooth and the tail (even at fifteenth place) is still around 20,000 searches per month.

UK  dog breed Popularity 2013

The UK has the greatest number of dog related searches per person of any country in the world. The UK also has a very strong dog Breed following - with dog breed data showing that the top breed is only 3.5 times the searches of the fifteenth place breed. Note that in America the top breed German shepherd was around eight times the volume of the fifteenth place breed..

Unlike America the UK dog popularity graph is quite bumpy showing several areas of rises instead of constant declines. This shows that there is considerable movement in the dog breed popularity over the last six month in the UK.

The top five breeds in UK are: shih tzu (34,333); German shepherd (27,283); cocker spaniel (28,000); Pomeranian (24,650); Labrador (19,600). You will note that all of these dogs are well established breeds with a long history in the UK.

Germany  dog breed Popularity 2013

The top five dog breeds in Germany as at feb 2013 were: Labrador (51,333); golden retriever (34,333); Rottweiler (23,833); Yorkshire terrier (20,100); Cocker Spaniel (14,350). Similar to the UK dog popularity, these dogs are all very established dog breeds.  While the big guard dog Rottweiler may seem like a surprise entry, it should be noted that this dog was created in Germany.

While Germany has a fairly smooth decline in volumes for dog popularity its top breed the Labrador is around fifty one (51) times the popularity of each of the bottom three dog breeds. This is in keeping with the total 'dog associated' searches for Germany being quite low on a per person basis.

Germany, like many highly developed European cities, has living space at a premium. So it is quite interesting that they still have relatively large dogs as the most popular dogs.

Note previous dog industry analysis on this site showed that even with compensation for Google market share and computer usage of each country that  Germany and most other European countries (all of those analysed) had a very low total dog associated search value per person.

In this report while the top dog breeds in UK and Germany have similar high volumes (UK 35,000)  Germany (xxx), the total dog associated searches for each country still are in line with previous expectations:  UK (2,123,463) and Germany (267,512).

Brazil  Dog breed Popularity 2013

The first thing you will notice is that this graph is very jagged, and after the fifth dog breed, the volumes decrease rapidly and stay low.

Brazil is an example of developing countries that has a low economic value per person, and a corresponding low dog ownership (official statistics) per person. At 61,333 for the leading dog breed, the Rottweiler search volume is also relatively small (per capita). That is, Brazil has similar dog search volumes for the top breed as Germany does, but Brazil has three times Brazil's population.

The top five dogs in Brazil were: Rottweiler (61,333); golden retriever (41,033); shih tzu (36,033); Labrador (43,500); yorkshire terrier (11,367).

An interesting point about this list is that while the German shepherd is  near the top of the list for many countries, it is thirteenth and very low volumes in Brazil.