Lindsay at That Mutt! is featuring various dog breeds on her blog, so I thought I’d follow suit and write a fun post about my dog’s "breed". Truthfully, he’s a mutt. My vet says he’s half rat terrier and half chihuahua, so we call him the Rathuahua! (I really need an audio file here to get how we say this across, but it’s something like rrrrrrat-WHAA-WHAA!)

Anyway, the rathuahua is a curious sort of dog. He’d like to be big, tough, and brave like his chihuahua bretheren, but he’d also like to be a big scaredy cat like, um, well. Not rat terriers, because they’re brave, too.

Advantages to owning a rathuahua

1. They’re compact little dogs and are fairly couch-potatoish, which makes them well suited to apartment living.

2. They are fairly easy to train- not stubborn and once they learn something, they’ll stick to it for life.

3. Once they’re house trained, they won’t go potty on your floor unless it’s a serious emergency. Even then, they’ll probably go on your linoleum to make it easier to clean up.

4. They’re very sturdy, for little dogs. Which would make them a good dog for people with children, except….

Disadvantages of owning a rathuahua

1. They don’t really like kids. Oh, my dog puts up with my kids. But other people’s kids? Fuggedaboutit.

2. They’re one person dogs. While this sounds like it might be an advantage, unless you’re a hermit, it can be a bad thing. My dog LOVES me and tolerates the rest of the family. Visitors that he doesn’t know? Not so much.

3. They shed. A lot. And because they’re black, white, and brown, you can expect their hair to show on literally everything you own.

And that’s the rathuahua in a nutshell!