Weight: 52lb (23.6kg) I have a sister-in-law that is about 110 dripping wet and she can throw on a kayak about the same weight. There are little tricks out there to sneak it up. Otherwise there is something like the hullavator that Thule makes to help if you dont have tickets... to the gun show! (That is when I show off my biceps, but it kind of doesn't in text.)

Hey, I have two boats, a 12ft sit in rec boat and a SOT almost identical to this, different brand. The SOT is MUCH better for me for overnights and such. Much more like an SUV, I can strap tons of stuff on it, like this boat a great space for a good sized cooler (very difficult to accomadate in a sit in boat) and the dry hatch space is almost as large as the main (rear) dry hatch in my sit it. Bottom line, don't worry about looking professional, worry about what will do the job for you and give you the best experience....and not having to learn rolls and such is not a bad thing, roll the SOT and you just roll it back while in the water and climb back on top.

From my experience I would say longer is generally better. Only reason to go shorter is if you can't lift a longer boat onto your car or whatever or money. Very doubtful your little rat terrier would cause stability problems from my experience...but for sure some boats are more stable than others. Generally the more stable (wider and/or flatter the hull) the more effort they take to paddle. Of course I've found virtually every kayak to be quite easy to paddle relative to every other choice out there, some are just better than others in that regard.