Bichon Frise vs West Highland White 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.

This breed carries roughly a one-in-four chance of developing lifelong itchy skin disease — about double the risk of the average dog — and it's also linked to an incurable, often fatal lung disease essentially unique to the breed that most sellers never bring up.