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50 free Maltese Dog trivia questions with answers — nature quiz, new questions added Aug 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 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The modern Maltese is placed in which kennel-club group?
Toy
The AKC ranks it 37th of 210 breeds in popularity and calls it 'Ye Ancient Dogge of Malta'.
Q 02The Maltese is genetically related to which trio of breeds?
Bichon, Bolognese and Havanese
They probably share a common ancestor from a severe bottleneck when a handful of petite varieties were selected for mating around two centuries ago.
Q 03Which slight variation is permitted on the Maltese's otherwise pure white coat?
A pale ivory tinge
Light brown spotting is also tolerated, and like other white dogs the breed may show tear-stains.
Q 04How much does an adult Maltese usually weigh?
3–4 kg
That is about 7–9 lb; the AKC standard asks for dogs under 7 lb.
Q 05What does the Maltese notably not do, which makes it popular with allergy sufferers?
Shed
The single silky coat has no undercoat, which is why it drops so little hair.
Q 06According to Nicholas Cutillo, the ancient Maltese variety probably resembled which later breed?
Pomeranian
He pictured a short snout, pricked ears and a bulbous head, quite unlike today's drop-eared dog.
Q 07Stanley Coren suggested that Maltese-type dogs were perhaps the first dogs employed as what?
Human companions
The little dog appears to have been the favourite household pet of the ancient Greek and Roman world.
Q 08An Attic amphora from about 500 BC, dug up at Vulci, shows a small dog labelled with which Greek word?
melitaie
The vase itself was excavated in the nineteenth century and has since been lost.
Q 09Besides Malta, ancient writers placed the dog's origin on which Adriatic island, also called Melita?
Mljet
Recent scholarship generally comes down on the side of Malta, whose Latin name came from the Carthaginian city of Melite.
Q 10In classical Greece the tiny dog was called Melitaion kunidion, which means what?
Small dog from Melita
Its smallness was compared to martens and even pangolins.
Q 11Which Cynic philosopher referred to himself as a 'Maltese dog'?
Diogenes of Sinope
The Cynics took their name from the Greek for 'dog-like', so the joke suited him; Diogenes Laertius recorded the remark.
Q 12In one of Aesop's fables, a spoiled Maltese is contrasted with which envious, hard-working animal?
An ass
The jealous animal tries to frolic and be winsome like the pup, only to be beaten and tied back to its manger.
Q 13Which Hellenistic poet, per Pliny, identified the dog's home Melite as the Adriatic island, not Malta?
Callimachus
The poem Alexandra, ascribed to his contemporary Lycophron, went the other way and identified Melite with Malta.
Q 21John Caius, physician to Elizabeth I, described 'Melitei' pets from Malta that were really what?
Spaniels
He was probably looking at the newly imported King Charles type, ancestors of the Blenheim toy dog.
Q 22Edwin Landseer's 1837 painting The Lion Dog from Malta: The Last of his Tribe portrayed a dog named what?
Quiz
The tiny white dog was posed beside a huge Newfoundland for scale.
Q 23Queen Victoria commissioned that Landseer portrait as a birthday present for whom?
Her mother, the Duchess of Kent
The dog in the picture belonged to the recipient, not to the queen.
Q 14Which geographer, writing in the early first century AD, attributed the dog's origin to Malta?
Strabo
His Geographica surveyed the whole known world of Augustus's day.
Q 15In Theophrastus's Characters, the petty-proud man's memorial slab for his dead dog calls it what?
Scion of Melita
The character type is Mikrophilotimia, a showy fastidiousness about one's own taste.
Q 16Per Athenaeus, the Sybarites delighted in Melite lapdogs and which other companions?
Owl-faced jester-dwarfs
The dogs reportedly went with them even to the gymnasia.
Q 17What did the Romans call these little dogs?
Catuli melitaei
Catulus is Latin for a puppy or small dog, and melitaeus simply means 'of Melita'.
Q 18The Roman poet Martial wrote verses about a lapdog, claimed to be a Maltese, named what?
Issa
She belonged to his friend Publius, whom some have tried to link to a Roman governor of Malta of that name.
Q 19Dog genomic experts say the modern Maltese, like many breeds, actually emerged in which era?
Victorian
It was created by regulating crosses of existing varieties to produce a type that could be registered as a distinct breed.
Q 20Abbé Jean Quintin, writing Malta's first history in 1536, reported what about the island's famous dogs?
Local people no longer knew them
Quintin was secretary to the Grand Master of the Knights of Malta, Philippe Villiers de L'Isle-Adam.
Q 24Breeder T. V. H. Lukey claimed his 'Maltese' strain had been imported in 1841 from where?
The Manilla Islands
The Victorian London 'Maltese' had no known connection to the island at all; Lukey was better known for English Mastiffs.
Q 25A Maltese class was first accepted at the 1862 Agricultural Hall Show in which London district?
Islington
The winner that year went on to dominate British shows for the next two decades.
Q 26From 1869 to 1879, which breeder's Maltese swept most shows at Birmingham and the Crystal Palace?
R. Mandeville
His kennels were considered to have furnished the finest strain for all subsequent Maltese breeding.
Q 27In what year did the American Kennel Club recognise the Maltese?
1888
By then a white 'Maltese Lion Dog' had already been shown at the very first Westminster show in 1877.
Q 28Under what name was a white dog shown at the first Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show in 1877?
Maltese Lion Dog
For a while afterwards American Maltese were occasionally crossed with poodles.
Q 29The Maltese stud book established in 1901 was based on the offspring of how many females?
Two
By the 1950s the registry still counted only about 50 dogs in its pedigree table.
Q 30The FCI definitively accepted the Maltese in 1955 under the patronage of which country?
Italy
Wikipedia describes the ancient variety as a dwarf white breed 'from Italy' that is generally associated with Malta.