Dog crossbreed status symbol?" "Designer dog" puppies sometimes bring higher prices than the purebreds from which they are bred. The fanciers of designer dogs respond that all modern dog breeds were created from earlier breeds and types of dogs through the same kind of selective breeding that is used to create designer dogs. The Toy Poodle was bred down in size from larger poodles, most likely by crossing with various very small Bichon types, such as the Maltese and Havanese. Most of the modern breeds have ancestries that include various older dog types and breeds; see individual breed articles for details of
Feist (dog) still often called "feists". The terriers brought to the US in the 1890s from England were crossed with feist dogs already here, in addition to some of the toy breeds (Toy Fox Terrier, Manchester Terrier, and Chihuahua) to develop the feist dogs known today. The word "feist" is described in" Webster's Third New International Dictionary" as from the obsolete word "fysting", meaning "breaking wind, in such expressions as fysting dog or fysting hound". Feist is defined as "1. chiefly dial: a small dog of uncertain ancestry..." The word feisty - "energetic, belligerent, esp. if small" is derived from the dog,