How many dogs were reported as stolen in your area in 2025

Your request details
Q1. Please state how many dogs were reported as stolen in your area in 2025:

Q2. Over the same timeframe, please state how many of these cases were resolved (i.e. the pet was returned to its owner):

Q3. If possible, please state the three most commonly stolen breeds of dog and the number of each taken, in 2025:

Response
I approached our Performance Review Unit for assistance with your request. An analyst within this unit has conducted a search of our Crime Management System - Connect which records complaints or allegations of those matters, which the Home Office specify should be recorded as 'crimes'. All our systems are designed and used first and foremost for Policing Purposes and have limited search capability. They provided me with the following data and explanation regarding their search criteria:

Criteria used :–
Incident Created Date is between 01/01/2025 and 31/12/2025, SYP & crime only filter, Property Status
is equal to Stolen, Stolen / Recovered, Property Class 3 is equal to / is in Dog
Please note :–
• Extracted on 16/01/2026. Data from CONNECT crime only. This is a live recording system and may
be subject to change.
• It's worth noting that some fields used are not mandatory and require manual input.
• There are no specific requirements to record pet details, such as breed, gender, age, etc.

Question 1
46

Question 2
11

Question 3
Due to low numbers, and the associated risk, providing a count of most common breed may lead to identification of individuals involved. This would engage Section 40(2) of the Freedom of Information Act
2000.

However, without count, the two most common breeds were French Bulldogs and XL Bulldogs. Further disclosure would, again, engage Section 40(2).

Please note, every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that data has been extracted from data sources used by this force for police purposes. The detail collected to respond specifically to your request is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large-scale recording systems and information assets.

The figures provided therefore are our best interpretation of relevance of data to your request, but you should be aware that the collation of figures/data for any requests may have limitations, and this should be taken into account when those data sets are used.

Police forces do not use generic systems or identical procedures for capturing the data. For these reasons this response to your questions should not be used for comparison purposes with responses you may receive from other police forces.