Chins are very dear to buy young (you can expect to pay in excess of £200 from a breeder!) so finding a rescue chin would be a good idea. I'm not entirely sure how commonly they appear in shelters for there has not yet been one in the shelter I work at ever since I started 5 months ago. I expect, though, that if you snoop around for a bit then you'll find one in need of a home.

I've never owned chins before but I had a neighbour that bred them. They are beautiful and generally friendly animals, but they are not a child's pet, so if you have any younger siblings then they will have difficulty in holding one. They can be a bit grumpy when woken up and take a while to become tame. Of course, they need a very large cage or pen to have enough space to enjoy themselves in, and sometimes chins need a helping hand with grooming in their elder years, which can be a bit of a painstaking task.

On the plus side, though, they generally don't smell, and if they do manage to escape then it's relatively easy to locate and catch them again.