summon your pet immediately into prime position under your feet as you try to sneak outside to the car. Finally, a Maltese absolutely loves to go with you for a walk—but don’t be surprised if their perception of a walk is you doing the walking as they are gently cradled in your arms, watching the landscape pass. In amulti-human household, Maltese will establish a pack-order among the human family members that it al- lows to share its domicile. If the Al- pha human is available, then refer to the previous paragraph regarding a single-human household. If the Alpha human is away from home, then the Maltese expeditiously “promotes” the Beta human into the place of the Alpha human with similar results. I call this the “love the one you’re with” phenomena. The Maltese craves companionship so strongly that it will lavish attention and devotion equally as well onto the Beta human as it rou- tinely does to the Alpha human—that is, until the Alpha human re-enters the domain. There exists one knock on the Mal- tese with regard to it being a great companion animal. It appears that animal behaviorists offer the obser- vation that this breed’s intelligence and ease of training are quite low on the overall scale relative to other breeds. I think that if you pose this comment as a question to any Mal- tese directly, they would offer that in being perfect in everyway, why should they ever consider tolerating any sort of behavior modification. Besides, they reason, it is rather simple and much more proper to just train the human, instead. Case-in-point, several years ago I was grooming “Bunny”, a petite female that we were actively showing at the time. I had set up a small grooming table next to the sofa in the den and was busy brushing out her long beau- tiful coat. As she had been outside playing, her hair had a few tangles and every time I discovered one with the brush she would conveniently repo- sition her body making it practically impossible for me to access that area of her coat. At a singlemoment in time
I had a firmgrip on her side coat as she was pulling against me. In a dreadful instant she pulled herself free and fell from the grooming table onto a hard ceramic tile floor—landing on her left shoulder. Before I could even move she was already wailing. Of course I immediately got down on my knees next to her on the floor and she came willingly up into my arms. A quick trip to the vet revealed no bro- ken bones—but she did have a serious amount of bruising on her shoulder. Bunny absolutely refused to put any weight on her front left leg that eve- ning and there was no improvement the next morning. In fact, several days passed and I would return from work each evening guilt-ridden, only to have my pain reinforced watch- ing Bunny hobble on three legs to the front door to meet me—her left front leg suspended “uselessly” off the floor. After a full week had passed with no appreciable improvement in Bunny, my anxiety level was off the chart. Be- cause she was rehabilitating, we had stopped allowing Bunny to run on the back porch with our other Maltese. Finally, simply because she felt that Bunny needed fresh air, my wife (An- gie) allowed Bunny to join her canine companions out on the back porch— closely monitoring the situation from inside the house. When I came home fromwork that day, a “hobbled” Bunny was replaced by my wife meeting me at the front door. With a smile on her face and a twinkle in her eye, Angie asked me to follow her to the back of the house where I spied Bunny…and her “useless” guilt-wrenching front leg…leaping and running and chasing the other dogs with absolutely no ap- parent discomfort. It was a miracle! I was so relieved and so happy I was frozen in place—whispering thanks for answered prayers. Casually, Angie opened the back patio door and all the dogs came storming into the house. Of course I was intent on greeting one of them in particu- lar—Bunny. As she came through the back door—running and jumping— she looked up, spied me standing just a few feet away, stopped dead still in
her tracks, raised her “injured” left paw up off the floor, and hobbled piti- fully over to me so that I could care- fully lift her up off of the ground into my arms—which I did. There is no way of knowing exactly how long that little bi*ch had been “playing me”. But any time I see a reference by an animal be- haviorist as to the limited intelligence level of this breed I simply smile, recall the lasting image of Bunny with her “injured leg” raised into the air, and realize that I know a secret about the Maltese that the experts may never figure out. That is, until and unless, they adopt the consummate canine companion, aMaltese.
BIO Larry and Angela Stanberry have been breeding and exhibiting Maltese un- der the Divine kennel name for nine- teen years. During that span they have produced over a hundred home-bred champions including Multi-BIS, Na- tional and Regional Specialty BOB’s, National SpecialtyGrand Sweepstakes winners, and garnered #1 All Systems finishes with several of their Maltese through the years. Also they are active in the American Maltese Association (AMA) having served as Chairman for the 1999 National Specialty in New Orleans and garnered AMA Top Sire, TopDam, TopMaltese—all onmultiple occasions—as well as having earned Platinum Breeder status for their sus- tained success in the breed over the years. They live in Ponchatoula, LA and now share their devotion for Mal- tese with their grandchildren (ages 7, 6, 5 and 8 months). T op N otch T oys , M ay 2019 • 51
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