West Highland White Terrier Lookalike Finder

To find your West Highland White Terrier's lookalike, upload one clear photo to PetMatch and the model compares your dog's face against the 167 Westies already in the pool, returning the real dog whose face sits closest to yours. The harsh white coat is what people notice first, but the match leans on the blunt muzzle, the dark almond eyes under heavy brows, and the small ears carried tightly erect.

A roundish head and ears that stay up

The AKC standard describes the West Highland White Terrier as a small, well-boned, hardy-looking terrier distinguished by a hard white double coat. The ideal size is eleven inches at the withers for dogs and ten inches for bitches. A slight deviation is acceptable, and the AKC breed page lists weight at 15 to 20 pounds. A face crop never shows the body, which the standard sets slightly shorter than the height at the withers.

From the front the head is shaped to look roundish and in proportion to the body. The skull is broad, slightly longer than the muzzle, and slightly domed between the ears, with a defined stop and heavy brows. The eyes are widely set, medium in size, almond shaped, dark brown, and deep set, with black eye rims. Looking out from under those brows, they give a piercing look. The muzzle is blunt, slightly shorter than the skull, powerful, and well filled under the eyes, tapering to a large black nose, with black lip pigment.

The ears are small and prick, set wide apart on the top outer edge of the skull, and carried tightly erect. Hair on them is trimmed short, smooth, and velvety, with no fringe at the tips. They are never cropped. That bare ear tip, above a furnished face, is one of the clearest lines in a Westie photo.

The harsh white coat

The coat is double: straight, hard hair over a short, soft undercoat. Jacket hair runs about one and a half to two inches, trimmed to blend into the shorter coat on the neck and shoulders and into the longer furnishings. Hair around the head is shaped into a roundish frame, with the ear tips and the eyes partly showing. The color is white, as the name says. The standard prefers a hard, straight coat with some wheaten tipping over a coat that is white but soft, so two dogs both called white can still differ where the tips warm up.

That frame is grooming as much as bone. A stripped jacket leaves the eyes and ear tips readable. A pet clip that takes the furnishings off, or a coat left long enough to cover the eyes, changes the outline a photo records.

What the matcher keys on

PetMatch matches on facial geometry and pattern rather than a breed label; how the AI matching works covers the details. For a Westie the strongest signals are the blunt, well-filled muzzle, the wide-set dark almond eyes under heavy brows, the small erect ears, and the hard white furnishings that round the face. A blown-out coat erases the stop and the black eye rims that give the breed its piercing look.

How do you tell a Westie from a Maltese?

By the ears and the coat. A Westie ear is small, prick, and carried tightly erect, with the hair trimmed off so the tip is bare. A Maltese ear is a drop ear, set rather low, and heavily feathered with long hair that hangs close to the head. The AKC describes the Maltese as a toy dog in a mantle of long, silky white hair. That coat is single, with no undercoat, and it hangs long, flat, and silky. The eyes are very dark and round, with black rims, and the muzzle is of medium length, fine, and tapered. Weight is under 7 pounds, with 4 to 6 pounds preferred. Color is pure white. Light tan or lemon on the ears is allowed, though not preferred.

A face crop hides the size gap between a 15-to-20-pound terrier and a toy under 7 pounds, so the two breeds get filed together when both dogs are small and white. The Maltese twin finder walks through that face, and the Maltese pool holds 225 dogs, separate from these 167. The erect ear and the blunt muzzle are what separate those Westies from a dog that only shares the white coat.

When the twin is a mix

A mixed-breed dog with a blunt muzzle, dark almond eyes, small erect ears, and a hard white coat can out-rank purebred Westies. The model is matching the face in the photo, not guessing at a pedigree.

Getting a good photo

Shoot head-on at eye level in open shade, with both eyes, the black nose, and both ear tips in the frame. Leave enough furnishings to show the roundish outline, and brush or trim just enough that the dark eye rims stay visible. Direct sun turns a white coat into a blank, and a top-down phone shot hides the ear set that separates a Westie from a drop-eared white dog.

A free account takes one photo and searches all 167 West Highland White Terriers in the pool for the one wearing your dog's face.