Bichon Frise vs Border Terrier

Marketed as 'hypoallergenic' and easy, but that curly coat needs professional grooming roughly every four weeks for the dog's entire life or it mats painfully down to the skin, and the breed carries a real, well-documented risk of luxating kneecaps and lifelong dental crowding that small-dog buyers routinely underestimate.

Border Terriers were bred to chase foxes into their dens and dig them out, and that instinct is fully intact — this is a genuine escape-artist digger with real prey drive, not the mellow 'easy small dog' its friendly, unassuming looks suggest — and the breed also carries a specific, sharply elevated risk of gallbladder disease that most sellers won't mention.