47 Fun Facts About Maltese Dog

The modern Maltese is placed in which kennel-club group?

Toy is the group kennel clubs keep for small lapdog breeds, and the AKC says the Maltese has been 'sitting in the lap of luxury since the Bible was a work in progress'.

Against its all-white coat, what colour does the breed standard require a Maltese's nose to be?

Black, and nothing else: the FCI standard disqualifies a Maltese whose nose is any other colour, and the AKC sums up the face as big dark eyes and a 'black gumdrop nose'.

Which slight variation does the international breed standard permit on the Maltese's otherwise pure white coat?

A pale ivory tinge is the only leeway the FCI standard gives: traces of pale orange already count as an imperfection, and any other colour or patch disqualifies the dog.

Roughly how much does a full-grown Maltese weigh?

About 3 kg: the AKC standard wants a Maltese under 7 lb and prefers 4 to 6 lb, which is why Britannica counts it among the few breeds that fit in a carrier purse.

What does the Maltese do very little of, which makes it popular with allergy sufferers?

Shed is what a Maltese barely does, so little loose hair and dander ends up around the house; even so, vets caution that no dog is truly allergen-free.

Show Maltese often enter the ring with the long hair on the head tied up in what?

A topknot, which the AKC standard allows by name, keeps the long head hair out of the dog's eyes; owners are told to use coated bands so the fine hair doesn't snap.

In legend, which shipwrecked apostle was given a Maltese by the island's grateful Roman governor?

Paul is shipwrecked on Malta in the Acts of the Apostles and heals the governor's father; the legend adds that the thank-you gift was one of the island's little white dogs.

About 500 BC, an artist painted a Maltese-type lapdog and labelled it 'Melitaie' on what kind of object?

A Greek amphora carried the label; it was dug up at Vulci in the nineteenth century and has since been lost, though the 'Melitaie dog' turns up on other Golden Age ceramics.

Some ancient writers put the Maltese's home on Mljet, off Croatia, in which sea?

The Adriatic: Mljet shared the ancient name Melita with Malta, so when Pliny, citing the poet Callimachus, put the lapdogs' home there, two islands ended up claiming one dog.

Which Greek philosopher, cataloguing animals in the fourth century BC, mentioned the tiny Melitaean lapdog?

Aristotle listed the little Melitaean dog in his writing on animals, and breed histories add that he praised it as perfectly proportioned for all its tiny size.

Which Cynic philosopher referred to himself as a 'Maltese dog'?

Diogenes of Sinope, asked what kind of dog he was, said 'When hungry, a Maltese; when full, a Molossian', two breeds that people praise yet never dare take out hunting.

In one of Aesop's fables, a spoiled Maltese is contrasted with which envious, hard-working animal?

An ass, in The Ass and the Lapdog, tries to win the same petting by frisking about and jumping on its master, and is beaten and tied back to its manger for its pains.

Which ancient seafaring traders are thought to have first brought the little white lapdog to Malta?

Phoenicians dominated Mediterranean trade before Greece's rise, and the AKC and the UK Kennel Club both suggest their ships carried the first little white dogs to Malta.

The geographer Strabo placed the home of the little Maltese dogs off the southern cape of which large island?

Sicily: Strabo wrote that off Cape Pachynus, its southern tip, 'lie Melita, whence come the little dogs called Melitaean', a bearing that fits Malta and not its ancient namesake off Croatia.

In Theophrastus's Characters, what does the man of petty ambition do when his Melitaean lapdog dies?

Puts up a gravestone: the inscribed slab reads 'a scion of Melita', Theophrastus's joke about owners who flaunted a fashionable imported lapdog's pedigree even after its death.

Which ancient Greek city, a byword for luxury, had citizens who reportedly took Maltese lapdogs even to the gymnasium?

Sybaris, the Greek colony whose taste for comfort gave English the word 'sybarite', counted Maltese lapdogs among its indulgences, as Athenaeus records.

Which old nickname did the Maltese pick up from its fashionable owners in ancient Rome?

Roman Ladies' Dog: the Maltese was a fashion statement in Rome, where a matron was said not to be fully dressed without one peeking out of her robes.

Martial's poem on Issa, a lapdog often called a Maltese, says her owner had what made of her?

A portrait: Martial says Publius had Issa painted so her last hour would not carry her off wholly, a likeness so exact that 'not even herself is so like herself'.

Dog genomic experts say the modern Maltese, like many breeds, actually emerged in which era?

Victorian breeders fixed the modern Maltese by controlled crosses and a closed registry, so despite the ancient name, researchers say no DNA line runs back to the lapdogs of ancient Greece.

Jean Quintin's 1536 history of Malta, the island's first, reported what about its famous dogs?

Local people no longer knew them: Quintin, secretary to the Knights' Grand Master, wrote that the lapdogs the ancients had praised were by then unknown even to the islanders.

Elizabeth I's physician John Caius described 'Melitei' lapdogs that were really which dogs, later Stuart court favourites?

Spaniels: Caius filed the 'Spaniel gentle, or the comforter' under the Latin name Melitaeus, so his Tudor Maltese was most likely a small spaniel.

Which British artist painted a tiny Maltese as 'The Last of his Tribe'?

Edwin Landseer posed the fluffy white dog with its paw on the nose of a huge Newfoundland, and his gloomy title proved wrong: the breed was a show-ring fixture within a generation.

In 1862 an early show class for the Maltese drew 41 dogs to the Agricultural Hall in which British city?

London: the hall stood in Islington, and Robert Mandeville's dogs Mick and Fido took first and second there, the start of his kennel's long run at the top of British shows.

A Maltese with a collapsing windpipe often develops a dry cough likened to the call of which bird?

A goose: the dry 'goose honk' cough is the classic sign of tracheal collapse, which is why a Maltese prone to it is walked on a harness instead of a collar.

Vets warn that the Maltese, like other small breeds, runs a heightened risk of which health problem?

Dental disease: small dogs are especially prone to it, so owners are told to brush a Maltese's teeth every day and book regular professional cleanings.

Under what name was the Maltese entered at the first Westminster Kennel Club show in 1877?

Maltese Lion Dog was the billing in New York, borrowing a 'lion dog' label that British fanciers had pinned on the little white lapdog since the 1830s.

Very young Maltese puppies are fed several small meals a day to guard against which condition?

Low blood sugar: very small puppies cannot go long without food before sliding into hypoglycaemia, a serious condition, so vets tell owners to feed little and often.

Despite the breed's name, which country holds patronage of the Maltese at the world canine federation, the FCI?

Italy is the breed's patron country at the FCI, which accepted the Maltese in 1955, and the standard itself says the name does not mean the dog came from the island of Malta.

Stanley Coren's intelligence ranking puts the Maltese low; what does it chiefly measure?

Obedience: Coren built the list by polling about 200 obedience-trial judges, so it rewards quick, willing pupils and is hard on independent-minded lapdogs.

Bred for centuries purely as a companion, the Maltese is especially prone to which behaviour problem?

Separation anxiety: a dog shaped to sit on laps bonds tightly to its people and wants to be at their side, so a Maltese left alone too long may fret and bark.

The Maltese is prone to which knee problem?

Luxating patella means a kneecap that pops in and out of its groove, an inherited fault in the breed that is managed by keeping the dog lean and, in bad cases, by surgery.

Patent ductus arteriosus, a birth defect that breeders screen Maltese puppies for, affects which organ?

The heart: in PDA a blood vessel beside it that should seal at birth stays open, and left untreated the extra strain can end in heart failure.

Which layer, found on most dogs, is missing from the Maltese's long silky coat?

An undercoat is absent: both main breed standards call the coat single, which is why a Maltese, long hair and all, copes badly with cold weather.

What does a Maltese's tail characteristically do?

Curve over its back: the American standard wants the plume's tip lying to one side, while the international standard wants it falling centrally and only tolerates a sideways curve.

Breeders in which country does the American Kennel Club credit with saving the Maltese from extinction in Europe's Dark Ages?

China, in the club's telling, kept the little dogs going after Rome fell, crossing them with native toy breeds and sending a more refined Maltese back to Europe.

Frank Sinatra gave Marilyn Monroe a Maltese with what name?

Maf was short for 'Mafia Honey', a nod to Sinatra's rumoured mob ties, and the white Maltese stayed with her from 1960 until her death two years later.

Which Scottish novelist wrote a 2010 novel narrated by Marilyn Monroe's Maltese?

Andrew O'Hagan gave the dog a learned voice, quoting Plato and Trotsky while trailing Monroe through the last two years of her life.

Hotel magnate Leona Helmsley left a $12 million trust fund to her Maltese, named what?

Trouble was flown to Florida by private jet to live with a Helmsley hotel manager, and died there in December 2010 aged twelve after drawing a string of kidnap threats.

What did a judge do to the $12 million trust fund Leona Helmsley left her Maltese?

Slashed it: the judge cut the fund to $2 million, still enough for the roughly $100,000 a year that the dog's care and full-time security guard cost.

The Maltese's bichon cousins are usually traced to the Barbet, a shaggy French dog bred for what work?

Retrieving waterfowl: the curly-coated Barbet was bred to flush and fetch birds from French marshes, which makes the lapdog bichons the shrunken heirs of a hunter.

Which powerful family sent eight Bolognese dogs, cousins of the Maltese, to Brussels nobles as gifts?

The Medici used the little white dogs as diplomacy, and they were not alone: a Duke d'Este sent a pair to Philip II of Spain, who called them the most royal gift an emperor could receive.

In the American Kennel Club's 2024 popularity rankings of about 200 breeds, roughly where did the Maltese place?

Around 40th: the Maltese held 37th place in 2024, far behind the French Bulldog, the small companion that had ended the Labrador's 31-year reign at the top.

After falling out of favour with Europe's nobility, the Bichon Frisé, a Maltese cousin, earned its keep as what?

A circus performer: street entertainers and organ grinders taught the quick little white dogs tricks that earned coins, and the big top soon followed.

The Bichon Frisé, a Maltese cousin, was long named after which Canary Island?

Tenerife: Spanish sailors are thought to have brought the little white dogs to the island, and its name stuck to them until breeders renamed the dog in the 1930s.

The Coton de Tuléar, a bichon-type cousin, is named for a port in which country?

Madagascar: Tuléar, now Toliara, is a port there, and the island's rulers so prized the cottony white dogs that commoners were barred by law from owning one.

Which event nearly wiped out the Havanese, another bichon-type breed?

The Cuban Revolution of 1959 sent the wealthy families who kept Havanese fleeing to the United States, where breeders later rebuilt the breed from just eleven dogs.

Like other white dogs, the Maltese may show what cosmetic issue around the eyes?

Tear-stains are reddish-brown marks left where tears run down the face, far more obvious on a white coat, and owners keep them down by wiping around the eyes every day.