Maltese: Lifespan, Size & Growth

Q: How long do Maltese live?

13.1 years is the median — meaning half live longer. That's from McMillan et al. (2024), a study of 584,734 UK dogs, and it rests on 2,021 Maltese specifically, with a 95% confidence interval of 12.6–13.5. Their risk of death was 0.93× the average across all breeds — i.e. longer-lived than typical. You'll see "10–12 years" quoted widely; we don't know where that comes from, and we can show you where ours does.

Q: When is a Maltese a senior?

Around 9.8 years. That's not a number anyone publishes — it's the AAHA's own definition (senior = the last 25% of expected lifespan) applied to this breed's measured median of 13.1. We're showing you the arithmetic rather than asserting it. Senior is a cue to move to twice-yearly check-ups, not a diagnosis: most dogs entering it are healthy and stay that way for years.

Q: How big do Maltese get?

The AKC standard says: under 7 pounds. A breed standard describes the show ring, not a promise — plenty of healthy dogs sit outside it.

Q: How fast does a Maltese puppy grow?

The table above is built from 8.5 million real veterinary weight records. One caveat we'd rather state than hide: the source dataset anonymises its breed column, so a genuinely Maltese-specific curve cannot be built by anyone — us included. Anyone claiming otherwise is guessing. What we do instead: a Maltese just below the standard's only stated bound (an upper limit) sits on percentile 26 (male) and 35 (female) of its size class, and we follow those percentiles. That distinction is not pedantry — this breed's females sit near the bottom of their class, so the class median would have run 17% heavy.

Every number on this page is measured and cited — with the sample size and the confidence interval, which is not how breed pages usually work.

Median lifespan

13.1 years

95% CI 12.6–13.5 · from 2,021 dogs of this breed

Senior from

9.8 years

AAHA's definition — the last 25% of expected life. Our arithmetic, not a published figure.

Risk vs average breed

0.93×

Below 1.0 — longer-lived than the average breed.

Where "Maltese live 13.1 years" comes from

Search this breed's lifespan and you'll get a tidy range — usually "10–12 years" — repeated identically across dozens of sites, with no source on any of them.

Ours comes from McMillan et al. (2024), Scientific Reports 14:531 — 584,734 UK dogs across 155 breeds, peer-reviewed, released CC BY 4.0. For this breed specifically it rests on 2,021 dogs, and the study publishes a confidence interval: 12.6–13.5.

That interval is the part worth noticing. With 2,021 dogs it's a smaller sample than the study's biggest breeds, so treat the interval as real width, not decoration.

The honest caveat: this is a UK population, drawn from rehoming, insurance and veterinary-corporate records. A dog has to enter one of those datasets to be counted, which probably under-counts dogs that die very young. It's the best data that exists; it isn't perfect, and we'd rather you knew which.

Adult size

The AKC standard for Maltese: under 7 pounds.

A breed standard describes the show ring, not a promise. Plenty of healthy dogs sit outside it, and a dog outside the range isn't defective — it's a dog.

Puppy growth: what to expect month by month

Expected weights for a puppy growing toward this breed's standard adult size, from our own curves — computed from 8.5 million real veterinary weight records.

Age	Male	Female
2 months	2 lb	2 lb
3 months	3 lb	3 lb
4 months	4 lb	4 lb
6 months	5 lb	5 lb
9 months	6 lb	6 lb
12 months	6 lb	6 lb
Fully grown (~12 mo m / 12 mo f)	6 lb	6 lb

What this is, precisely. The dataset behind our curves anonymises its breed column — so a genuinely Maltese-specific curve cannot be built, by us or by anyone. What we can do is honest: a Maltese just below the standard's only stated bound (an upper limit) sits on percentile 26 (male) and 35 (female) of the size classes it belongs to, so the table follows those percentiles — the same percentile-following assumption we backtested on 63,993 held-out dogs.

Why it matters here: this breed's females sit near the bottom of their size class, not the middle. Had we printed the class median instead, the female column would read about 8 lb at maturity — against the 6 lb a standard Maltese female actually reaches, i.e. 17% heavy, and entirely plausible-looking. How we check for that.

It still describes a puppy on the standard. Yours may be headed above or below it and be perfectly healthy — the calculator works from your own puppy's weight instead of the standard's.

Predict your own puppy's adult weight →

Life stages

Using the AAHA definitions and this breed's measured lifespan of 13.1 years:

Stage	Age	What changes
Puppy	to ~9 months	Rapid growth; ask your vet about neutering timing
Young adult	~9 months – 3.5 years	Still maturing socially, longer than people expect
Mature adult	3.5 – 9.8 years	Get a baseline blood panel while they're well
Senior	9.8+ years	Twice-yearly check-ups; a monitoring change, not a prognosis

The senior threshold is our arithmetic — AAHA's "last 25% of expected lifespan" rule applied to McMillan's measured median. AAHA deliberately publishes no fixed ages, because lifespan is breed-dependent. See our senior dog age guide.

Frequently asked questions

How long do Maltese live?

13.1 years is the median — meaning half live longer. That's from McMillan et al. (2024), a study of 584,734 UK dogs, and it rests on 2,021 Maltese specifically, with a 95% confidence interval of 12.6–13.5. Their risk of death was 0.93× the average across all breeds — i.e. longer-lived than typical. You'll see "10–12 years" quoted widely; we don't know where that comes from, and we can show you where ours does.

When is a Maltese a senior?

Around 9.8 years. That's not a number anyone publishes — it's the AAHA's own definition (senior = the last 25% of expected lifespan) applied to this breed's measured median of 13.1. We're showing you the arithmetic rather than asserting it. Senior is a cue to move to twice-yearly check-ups, not a diagnosis: most dogs entering it are healthy and stay that way for years.

How big do Maltese get?

The AKC standard says: under 7 pounds. A breed standard describes the show ring, not a promise — plenty of healthy dogs sit outside it.

How fast does a Maltese puppy grow?

The table above is built from 8.5 million real veterinary weight records. One caveat we'd rather state than hide: the source dataset anonymises its breed column, so a genuinely Maltese-specific curve cannot be built by anyone — us included. Anyone claiming otherwise is guessing. What we do instead: a Maltese just below the standard's only stated bound (an upper limit) sits on percentile 26 (male) and 35 (female) of its size class, and we follow those percentiles. That distinction is not pedantry — this breed's females sit near the bottom of their class, so the class median would have run 17% heavy.

Is this data reliable?

It's the best available, with limits worth knowing. The lifespan figure comes from a UK population drawn from rehoming, insurance and vet-corporate records — so it's conditional on a dog entering those datasets, and dogs dying very young are likely under-counted. It's also UK, not US. The growth curves come from US veterinary records. Both are peer-reviewed and openly licensed, and both are on our methodology page in full.

Sources last checked 2026-07-17. Lifespan: McMillan et al. (2024), Scientific Reports 14:531, CC BY 4.0 (UK population). Adult weight: AKC published breed standard, fetched and verified. Growth curves: computed by us from the raw dataset behind Salt et al. (2017), PLoS ONE 12(9): e0182064, CC BY 4.0 — a size-class curve, not breed-specific. Life stages: 2019 AAHA Canine Life Stage Guidelines. Full detail on our methodology page.