Bichon Frise vs Scottish 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.

Scotties carry one of the best-documented cancer risks of any breed — a Purdue University study found them roughly 20 times more likely than other breeds to develop bladder cancer — a fact almost never mentioned by sellers focused on the breed's famous silhouette.