Two tiny Maltese dogs discomoding a huge Irish Wolfhound photography by D'Lynn Waldron

The Maltese dogs of Sid and Lois. Shayna and their new puppy GG, who travels in a Chanel dog carrier bag.

The dogs on my web site are/were our pets and not for sale.

I VERY STRONGLY ADVISE YOU buy only from a recognized breeder in your own area. Maltese puppies are being imported from Mexico that are badly bred and sick, and these are being sold in open air markets, via newspaper ads, on the Web and through pet stores, etc.

A good breeder shows dogs and has dogs priced for show and priced as pets. A 'home' breeder may not use a genetically sound male and/or female.

I also advise you to buy a puppy both of whose parents are passed the age of at least three years, because epilepsy and other genetic problems can take that long to be manifest.

If you have never had a Maltese, you will find that having lived with humans for over 3500 years they are as adept at making us do what they want as sheep dogs do sheep. And they understand human language very well, so don't say anything around them you don't want them to hear.

If my Andy is any example, every baby in the neighborhood was his personal responsibility, including waking me up in the night if he heard a baby crying anywhere and getting very angry at me if I didn't immediately find and attend to that baby.

The most astounding thing happened when we brought him home at 9 weeks from where he had been with his mother in a newspaper lined playpen. He came into our house, looked around and climbed up on the Sunday paper to piddle. And here is the absolutely unbelieveable thing- he made it perfectly clear he wanted that paper moved into the bathroom- he paper trained us!

Andy would lecture us for paragraphs without repeating a sound combination, if we were doing something he thought unsafe- like putting out the garbage after dark. There was not one person who knew him who didn't say he talked. I have friends with Maltesese who are wonderful dogs, but they all say Andy was something way beyond that. The downside is he only did what he wanted and should have gone to obedience class as a puppy. The one thing he obeyed was not to get underfoot in the kitchen and we have a photo of him holding a toddler by the seat of the diapers to prevent it going into the kitchen.