Criteria:

Small
Healthy
Minimal malting
Good with children
Characterful

So far we’ve narrowed it down to:
Patterdale
Border Terrier

Small great with kids = border terrier. You can’t really go wrong with one of these. Don’t know so much about the Patterdale, great working dogs i’ve heard very willful but great with the wee ones.

Cannot recommend a border enough. We have an 8 month male, great with the 3 kids, great off the lead, ticks all your boxes. Parents have patterdale, again great with kids, however let him off the lead and off he goes, lost for 2 hours once as many are bread for hunting and ratting.

Miniature Schnauzer.

Ours is all of the above and absolutely loves people and is very sociable with other animals.

Happy playing, walking or simply curled up on the sofa with my 6 year old daughter.

Whippet

Don’t believe what you read.

Border Terriers malt ALL bloody year. We are always cleaning up hair and he’s kept striped as well.

If you are thinking of a terrier get a female as most males want to fight other male dogs.

Take them to puppy training but you will never train the terrier out of male borders

Patterdale 😉

As mentioned above, the bitches are less wilful than the dogs. Since getting ours, 4 others have appeared locally due to her being “such a lovely dog”.

The rough haired (Wilson bloodline) ones tend to be more protective than hunter too IME.

Word of caution with the miniature Schnauzer…ours has not lost the hunting gene….she likes nothing better than going out into the garden in the dark and ‘hunting’ beetles….which she then takes into the house, drops on the floor then watches my wife ‘react’ as they then scuttle across the carpet.

Beagle + shrink ray.

Your criteria has described a Stafford perfectly

We’ve got a Scottie mixed with a westie, he matches your criteria. Coming up to 5 months old now very characterful very placid and good company (I work from home a lot) I think the cross breeding breeds out lots of illness but could be wrong. Scruffy looking little fella though my mate said he’s like a pensioners dog!

Edit, I’ve not noticed much malting

Miniature Poodle
True non moulting breed , very intelligent easy to train 🙂

‘malting’? Surely it has to be a Scottish breed. Best around 12yrs old depending on which you choose.

Your criteria has described a Stafford perfectly

Staffordshire?
+1

In a similar position to the original post, although have 2 cats but kids planned within the next year,

I had a staffie X rescue as I was growing up, great dogs that have a terrible rap due too misguided fools who believe they’re dog is a hardened Guard dog, truth is you can wind a poodle up enough and it’ll snap, angers me! (Rant over!)

Seriously, look into a rescue dog, so many dogs need rehoming and people still buy from breeders, if you look around you’ll come across a staffie puppie or two… or three…..or four

Small – ish
Healthy – very
Minimal malting – yarp
Good with children – very
Characterful – absolutely!

Well said tacopowell they are such a misunderstood breed

Staffies are lovely natured dogs, we were looking into one but then the Scottie westie cross litter we ended up with came up. I wouldn’t get a dog from a breeder personally when you can get a pup from a rescue centre.

You do know that dogs are tricky to swap/upgrade when you see a faster shinier one…

Agree on Staffs but I live in the wrong area for one.

define characterful…………………

covers a lot that does!

No your all wrong.
GWP crossed with a Vizsla.

Agree on Staffs but I live in the wrong area for one.

You live in suburbia and a staffie won’t keep up the Jones’s Pack of Dalmatians?!

We have two westies, they fill your list perfectly. That’s it for me now, when they’re gone I’ll get more westies.

We had a very feisty male Westie.

Lakeland Terrier

Based on your frame choosing ‘methodology’; you’ll be wanting a big dog within a month, and then a white one the month after 🙂

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See, told you. GWP/Viszla

I’ve got a couple of westies, they great little dogs but like all terriers they are not that trainable and 1 of them doesn’t like children, doesn’t act aggressive but will not go to them like he does with adults. The other is great with anybody.

However, met a lady with a “westiepoo” the other day. He seemed a lovely little fella. The cross breeding should help with health issues and will probably be a bit more trainable than a full terrier. Might be worth checking them out.

Haven’t we done this before hora?

I was just about to say that, Patterdales and Border Terriers are much more terrier like than a westie and would seem entirely the wrong options for you.

Of course we have and I’ll stick by my comment from that thread and agree with DD and AE. Your son is only 4 months older – is he still nervous around dogs?

Welsh Terrier

Another vote for a Staffordshire. I had one for 13 years, I still miss him dreadfully. The rescue homes are full of them.

+1 Merack, miss my two boys, you cant get better than a Stafford 😀

Poodle or Staffie, got both, both are ace!

No bias as I have a big dog, but I would go for a border out of those two. Seem a bit better with other dogs.

how long do you intend to keep this one?

You’ve actually picked two lovely breeds of dog there. I have a Patterdale/Jack Russell cross and she’s fantastic and love her to bits. Right now though the hoover is being primed as she’s losing her winter coat and boy does it get very hairy round here when she does. Wouldn’t swap her for the world though.

How long? Two 7yr old westies in the park. Mine fine muscled, lean, no issues and covered in mud. The other typically westie overfed with lots of skin issues. Our Westie had no insurance. No need. The other westie owner had her insurance cancelled. Our dog ate a managed diet/no horsemeat in tins 8)

So we would have had him for c17yrs I bet. Sadly he couldn’t bare our new son and couldnt accept him. Eeeeee I still remember SFBs pic of bingo running infront of my bike on a descent on Rivington 🙂