Maltese Puppy Stages

Most of the calls we get from new owners come down to one question: is this normal? Nearly always it is, and nearly always it is a stage. Dogs grow up in a sequence that is the same in every breed, with the small breeds moving through it faster, and a Maltese that is biting at ten weeks, bolting at five months and ignoring you at nine is not a problem dog. It is a puppy, on schedule. Here is the schedule, with the ages taken loosely, because every puppy keeps its own.

Birth to three weeks: the nest

Eyes and ears open in the second week, the puppy starts to stand in the third, and until then it does nothing but feed, sleep and be kept warm by its mother. What we do in these weeks is handle each puppy briefly every day, so that from the first days a human hand is part of the world. There is nothing an owner needs to do here because no puppy should be with an owner yet.

Three to seven weeks: learning to be a dog

This is when puppies become dogs. They play, and in play they learn what a bite feels like from the other end, how hard is too hard, what a growl means, how to read another dog's body. Their mother teaches manners, firmly and clearly, and a puppy that has been told off by its mother at five weeks accepts correction from a human at twelve. Puppies taken from the litter before seven weeks miss this, and it shows for life: they bite harder, bark more, cope worse with other dogs and are harder to train. This is the first reason our puppies stay until twelve weeks.

Seven to twelve weeks: the window

The puppy's brain is now ready to take in the world, and whatever it meets in these weeks it will accept for life; whatever it does not meet it may always be wary of. Our puppies spend this period in the house meeting people of every age, floor surfaces, the vacuum cleaner, the car, the doorbell, being bathed, dried and groomed, and being carried to places that are noisy. Towards the end of it comes a short fear period, usually around eight to ten weeks, when a puppy that was bold is suddenly startled by things it ignored last week. A frightening experience in those days can stick, so it is a time for gentle exposure, not for the fireworks display. This is the second reason for twelve weeks: the puppy comes to you with the window well used and the fear period behind it.

Twelve to sixteen weeks: who is in charge

The puppy arrives, settles, and within a fortnight starts to test. It mouths harder, ignores a call, guards a toy, decides the sofa is its own. This is the age to set every house rule you intend to keep, kindly and without exception, because a rule taught now takes a week and a rule taught at a year takes a month. Short training sessions, a few minutes at a time, work; the attention span is seconds. Teething starts here too, and the chewing page explains what that does to the furniture and how to redirect it.

Four to eight months: the bolt

Somewhere in here a puppy that always came when called takes off across the park instead, and keeps going. It is not disobedience in the sense the owner feels it; it is a developmental urge to range, and every dog has it. The answer is simple and unglamorous: during these months the puppy is on a lead or a long line whenever it is not fenced, and recall is practised and rewarded daily, so that when the stage passes the habit of coming is still there. A Maltese that learns in these months that running off is fun will remember it. The adult teeth finish coming through, and sexual maturity arrives, often earlier than owners expect in a small breed; talk to your vet about the timing of spaying or neutering.

Five to eighteen months: adolescence

The teenage months. The puppy knows the rules and tries them. It is more independent, more easily distracted, more interested in other dogs, and on some days apparently deaf. Males start lifting a leg and may start marking; females come into season for the first time, usually between six and twelve months. Training that was going well seems to go backwards. It has not; the dog is simply testing whether the rules still hold, and if they do, it comes out the other side an adult who knows them. Patience, consistency, and enough exercise to take the edge off.

Six to fourteen months: the second fear period

Often overlapping adolescence, there is a second spell, a few weeks long, when a half-grown dog is suddenly afraid of a man in a hat, a dustbin that was always there, or a flight of steps it has used every day. It is as real to the dog as the first fear period and it passes the same way. Do not force the dog up to the thing; do not coddle it either. Let it look, stay calm, carry on, and in a week or two the dustbin will be furniture again.

One to four years: the adult

A Maltese is physically grown by about a year and mentally settled by two. The coat matures, the body fills out, the manners you taught hold, and the dog becomes the companion the breed is famous for: quiet in the house, glued to its people, pleased with itself. Some dogs, mostly intact males, have one more go at the rules in the second year. The ones that were raised with clear rules in the first six months rarely do.

The thing to remember

Small dogs move through all of this faster than large ones, so a Maltese is doing at five months what a Labrador does at nine. The stages are short, and each one is survivable with the same two tools: knowing it is a stage, and keeping the rules the same all the way through it. If something your puppy is doing worries you and it is not on this page, ring us. We have usually seen it.