Maltese Price: What a Maltese Puppy Costs

The short answer: a puppy from Divine Maltese is $600. Travel, if you need it, is quoted separately. The rest of this page is the long answer, because the price of a Maltese is one of the most searched questions about the breed and most of what comes up is either a marketplace listing or a guess.

What $600 buys here

The puppy itself, raised in our house from the day it was born and kept with its litter until twelve weeks. Its AKC registration papers, on Limited Registration for a pet. A written health guarantee. Vaccinations to date for its age, worming, and a veterinary examination before it leaves, with the shot record and health certificate to show for it. A week's supply of the food it is already eating, so the first change in its life is the house and not the diet as well. And behind the puppy, both parents tested for patellar luxation, examined for heart defects, examined by a veterinary ophthalmologist under the CAER scheme, and bile acid tested for liver shunt, with certificates you can ask to see.

Travel is the one cost that depends on you. Collecting in person costs nothing. A flight nanny who carries the puppy in the aircraft cabin, or ground transport over two to three days, is quoted for your route and paid by the buyer. We do not ship a puppy as cargo at any price. The options are set out on the available puppies page.

Why Maltese prices vary so much

Search for a Maltese and you will see puppies advertised from a few hundred dollars to several thousand, sometimes from the same town. The spread is not random. It tracks four things, and knowing which ones you are paying for is the whole trick.

What was spent before the litter. A litter from health tested, championship titled parents costs a great deal to produce. Finishing a dog in the ring, testing both parents, a stud fee or the keeping of a stud, progesterone testing, a caesarean when the bitch needs one, and a Maltese litter of two or three puppies to spread it across. A breeder who has done all of that cannot sell at the price of one who has done none of it, and should not be expected to.

What the seller is. A pet shop or an online marketplace is a middleman, and the mark-up is paying for the shop, not the dog. A high-volume kennel can price low because its parents were never tested, titled or shown and its puppies leave at eight weeks. A show breeder with a waiting list prices for the waiting list. A show breeder in a quiet patch, with a pet puppy from a litter they bred to keep a show prospect from, prices to find the right home.

Marketing words. "Teacup", "micro", "Korean face", "rare colour". None of these is a category in the breed standard, which already asks for a dog under seven pounds, and elsewhere each one is a reason to charge more. We do have teacup-sized puppies, the smallest of a normal litter, and they are the same $600 as any other puppy here; the teacup Maltese price page explains why the word costs so much more in other hands, and the teacup page what it actually means.

Where you are. Prices run higher in the big coastal cities than in the rural South, for the same reason everything else does. A well-bred puppy flown in from a cheaper region, nanny fare included, is often still less than the local price, which is why most of ours go out of state.

Why ours is $600

Because the breeding program does not exist to sell puppies. It exists to keep a line going that we have worked on since 1992, and a litter happens when we want to keep something from it. The pet puppies in that litter are not the product; they are the brothers and sisters of the product, and we would rather they went to a good home at a fair price than sat on a listing at a high one. The health testing, the registration and the twelve weeks are not extras we charge for; they are simply how a litter is raised here.

What the dog costs after the purchase

The purchase price is the smallest number in a Maltese's life. A coat like this needs daily brushing and, for most pet owners, a professional groom every four to six weeks for twelve to fifteen years. Add good food in small quantities, annual veterinary care, dental work, which this breed needs more than most, and the inevitable unplanned visit. Over the life of the dog you will spend many times its price no matter what you paid for it. That is the real reason to buy the soundest puppy you can find rather than the cheapest: the cheap one costs the same to keep and more to repair.

Three questions before you pay anyone

Which health tests were done on both parents, by name, and may I see them? At what age does the puppy leave, and where was it raised? What happens if I cannot keep the dog? If the seller cannot answer all three plainly, the price does not matter. Ours are on the about page, and Angie will answer anything else on (856) 394-0451 or at divinemaltaol.gmail.com@gmail.com.