AKC Maltese puppies for sale AKC Champion Maltese

Storybook Maltese

The Maltese dog is the perfect companion and is therefore highly desired and sought after. Their stunning beauty, charm, and grace, coupled with their fierce and undying loyalty and gentle, calm nature, makes the Maltese dog the most perfect of companion animals.  

For the Maltese fancier, producing a litter of high-quality puppies that conform to breed standard is no simple task.  In fact, it takes immense devotion, skill, and expense. Breeding this dog is not like breeding larger dogs and the cost and labor involved are very high.

To begin with, we’ve started with very expensive and well-bred dogs, spent money on their food, shelter, vet care, training, extensive & expensive DNA health testing, among all the normal duties of cleaning up after them daily, brushing them, bathing them, and the list goes on.  Then there are the fees to show our dogs to Championship in the show ring. After all that, we can’t just leave the male and female together to ‘do their thing’ and produce a nice litter of puppies. Oh no!

First, there is the progesterone testing to be sure we don’t miss and know exactly when to breed (up to $200).

Each and every breeding must be very carefully supervised and assisted, because long is the list of potential disasters that can go wrong with the breeding of tiny dogs with long hair. This can go on for 10 days and adds up to a lot of work.  I have had to miss many events because I am busy doing a breeding or waiting around to deliver puppies.

They do not conform to my busy schedule.  My dogs seem to love having pups on a Holiday!

So you want a Maltese puppy but you have ‘sticker-shock’.  How in the world do these Maltese puppy breeders justify the price tag of their puppies?  Learn why the Maltese dog is so expensive...

Our puppies are $3500 -$5000 depending on parentage and sex.

Our Champion & Grand Champion breeding stock is DNA health tested.

We are NOT a cheap puppy mill.
Why Are Maltese Puppies So Expensive?

Only the best will do

for our moms & pups

Finally the mom is pregnant. This will involve cleaning up vomit from morning sickness, maybe diarrhea too.  Also, daily administration of prenatal vitamins is essential to produce the healthiest possible puppies and these vitamins aren’t cheap.  

Once she is 56 days along we will need an X-ray ($75) to see how many pups we have and what position they’re in and if it looks like we need our vet to stand by for a C-section, which always happens at 3 a.m. on a Sunday or Holiday to double our charge.  Our last one cost $2500.

Perhaps we have used an outside stud and paid a stud fee of $1500 or more, or have to give a pick puppy back out of a litter that will probably only produce 2-3 puppies anyway, and that’s if everything goes smoothly and we don’t lose any puppies.

Even when I use my own stud dog my investment in my own male is many thousands of dollars by the time you factor in a hefty purchase price to acquire a truly exceptional dog from a well-bred background and then invest the money to get his Championship in the conformation show ring. Add to that extensive health testing.

Often, just about the time you raise a 4 puppy litter and recover some of your funds spent, along comes a disaster and after investing a fortune, have a C-Section, and lose the entire litter and the mother too. It’s usually a matter of being ‘in the red’ for the breeder of show quality Maltese puppies.

There’s no other reason to do it than for the love of the breed.

Because we place many of our puppies as Service Dogs and Therapy Dogs, we invest yet more time in their early training.

This training begins at 3 days old and since at that age, we have no idea who will turn out to be our next show dog and who will turn out to be a therapy or service dog, or who will be just a beloved pet for someone, we must give them ALL the same treatment and training.  

This requires at least 2 extra hours a day.  Further training to including potty training, purse training, crate training, and groom training means we invest an enormous amount of time in each puppy.

Yes, the Maltese is an expensive pet. Properly bred and raised, the pet purchased from a reputable and responsible breeder, is worth every penny.

You could buy a Maltese puppy from a backyard breeder for much less and then spend thousands of dollars on vet care from any number of deficits that come with sloppy, greedy breeding, not to mention the high emotional cost.

A well-bred Maltese can live, with proper care, up to 20 years or more.  If you want a Maltese dog, you are far better off to buy a puppy that is a progressive step in a good breeding program designed to produce better dogs in each consecutive generation.

There are never any complaints from those who own our puppies that they did not feel they got exactly what they paid for.


100% happiness for our puppies and their new families is our goal and we put a tremendous amount of effort and expense into achieving this outcome. If you’d like to know what adopting one of our puppies has been like for others, please take a moment to review our references here.


This mom had to have a
C-section.  There was no way
the puppies would fit for a
natural birth.

X-Ray of pregnant Maltese