The English confab dog, in common usage, refers to the domestic pet dog, Canis lupus familiaris. The species was originally classified as Canis familiaris and Dog Tags "Canis familiarus domesticus" by Linnaeus in 1758. In 1993, dogs were reclassified as a subspecies of the gray wolf, Canis lupus, by the Smithsonian Institution and the American Company of Mammalogists.

In the United Kingdom, The Kennel Club reports that the most-registered breed from at least 1999 to 2005 was the Labrador Retriever. It rounds out the excellent three for 1999 to 2005 with the German Shepherd Dog, also popular in the US, and the English Cocker Spaniel , which is no longer in the first-rate ten in the US. In the UK, a national dog adoption and rescue service indicates that the most daily breed appearing in shelters is the Greyhound followed by the Staffordshire Bull Terrier.