Maltese Dog Trivia
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47 free Maltese Dog trivia questions with answers — nature quiz, new questions added Sep 2026.
This Maltese trivia quiz covers the little white lapdog from its earliest appearances on Greek vases to the show ring and the celebrity lap. It starts with antiquity: the amphora from Vulci, Aristotle and Diogenes, Callimachus versus Strabo on whether Melita meant Malta or the Adriatic island of Mljet, Martial's poem to Issa, and Theophrastus's man who put up a memorial slab to his 'scion of Melita'. Then it follows the modern breed: Landseer's painting of Quiz for Queen Victoria, the London fanciers who invented the Victorian 'Maltese', the 1877 Westminster 'Maltese Lion Dog', AKC recognition in 1888 and FCI patronage by Italy, plus the coat, size, shedding and health facts a new owner needs. Famous dogs include Marilyn Monroe's Maf, a gift from Frank Sinatra, and Trouble, the Maltese who inherited $12 million from Leona Helmsley. Questions run from easy to expert with a difficulty score on each, so it suits a family quiz or a real dog-history buff. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia, the AKC and breed references and each question carries its citation. Also try our Dogs and Shih Tzu quizzes.
30 of 47 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The modern Maltese is placed in which kennel-club group?
Toy
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'.
Q 02Against its all-white coat, what colour does the breed standard require a Maltese's nose to be?
Black
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'.
Q 03Which slight variation does the international breed standard permit on the Maltese's otherwise pure white coat?
A pale ivory tinge
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.
Q 04Roughly how much does a full-grown Maltese weigh?
About 3 kg
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.
Q 05What does the Maltese do very little of, which makes it popular with allergy sufferers?
Shed
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.
Q 06Show Maltese often enter the ring with the long hair on the head tied up in what?
A topknot
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.
Q 07In legend, which shipwrecked apostle was given a Maltese by the island's grateful Roman governor?
Paul
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.
Q 08About 500 BC, an artist painted a Maltese-type lapdog and labelled it 'Melitaie' on what kind of object?
A Greek amphora
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.
Q 09Some ancient writers put the Maltese's home on Mljet, off Croatia, in which sea?
Adriatic
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.
Q 10Which Greek philosopher, cataloguing animals in the fourth century BC, mentioned the tiny Melitaean lapdog?
Aristotle
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.
Q 11Which Cynic philosopher referred to himself as a 'Maltese dog'?
Diogenes of Sinope
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.
Q 12In one of Aesop's fables, a spoiled Maltese is contrasted with which envious, hard-working animal?
An ass
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.
Q 13Which ancient seafaring traders are thought to have first brought the little white lapdog to Malta?
Phoenicians
Q 21Elizabeth I's physician John Caius described 'Melitei' lapdogs that were really which dogs, later Stuart court favourites?
Spaniels
Spaniels: Caius filed the 'Spaniel gentle, or the comforter' under the Latin name Melitaeus, so his Tudor Maltese was most likely a small spaniel.
Q 22Which British artist painted a tiny Maltese as 'The Last of his Tribe'?
Edwin Landseer
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.
Q 23In 1862 an early show class for the Maltese drew 41 dogs to the Agricultural Hall in which British city?
London
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.
Q 14The geographer Strabo placed the home of the little Maltese dogs off the southern cape of which large island?
Sicily
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.
Q 15In Theophrastus's Characters, what does the man of petty ambition do when his Melitaean lapdog dies?
Puts up a gravestone
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.
Q 16Which ancient Greek city, a byword for luxury, had citizens who reportedly took Maltese lapdogs even to the gymnasium?
Sybaris
Sybaris, the Greek colony whose taste for comfort gave English the word 'sybarite', counted Maltese lapdogs among its indulgences, as Athenaeus records.
Q 17Which old nickname did the Maltese pick up from its fashionable owners in ancient Rome?
Roman Ladies' Dog
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.
Q 18Martial's poem on Issa, a lapdog often called a Maltese, says her owner had what made of her?
Portrait
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'.
Q 19Dog genomic experts say the modern Maltese, like many breeds, actually emerged in which era?
Victorian
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.
Q 20Jean Quintin's 1536 history of Malta, the island's first, reported what about its famous dogs?
Local people no longer knew them
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.
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.
Q 24A Maltese with a collapsing windpipe often develops a dry cough likened to the call of which bird?
A goose
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.
Q 25Vets warn that the Maltese, like other small breeds, runs a heightened risk of which health problem?
Dental disease
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.
Q 26Under what name was the Maltese entered at the first Westminster Kennel Club show in 1877?
Maltese Lion Dog
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.
Q 27Very young Maltese puppies are fed several small meals a day to guard against which condition?
Low blood sugar
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.
Q 28Despite the breed's name, which country holds patronage of the Maltese at the world canine federation, the FCI?
Italy
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.
Q 29Stanley Coren's intelligence ranking puts the Maltese low; what does it chiefly measure?
Obedience
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.
Q 30Bred for centuries purely as a companion, the Maltese is especially prone to which behaviour problem?
Separation anxiety
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.