There must be a light under the bushel!

Demon's Spawn, aka Maggie

My mother and I split the cost to buy a Maltese puppy for my grandmother. When we arrived at the breeder's house, both of us were immediatley drawn to the runt, who was also the most independent of the litter. Well, it turns out that she's too much of a handful for G-ma, so we're sharing the responsibility of training her and she'll be Mom's dog. This was no hardship to us, since we were already dreadfully attached to her.

We did a lot of research to make sure we were buying the best dog to fit the bill. I like mutts, but we needed a really small and well-mannered dog that G-ma could handle, so we found the perfect dog. She'll only get to be about 5 pounds. Her tempermant is supposed to be really sweet, and the breed is supposed to be easily trained. Hah!

I don't know what it is about my family, but we apparently like spunk. Okay, she's just a puppy, so of course, she'll want to play. Well, she doesn't just play; she goes into this overdrive demon mode where you can't calm her down, you can't catch her, and you can't get her to stop biting.

I actually read a whole book about the breed so that I would be able to train her right. That was a big waste of time. It actually said there is no reason to ever spank a dog. All you have to do is tell her no. Yeah, right. When I tell her no, she barks at me, just like a little kid talking back. I think part of the problem is that we think that's funny...

The book (as well as several fellow owners of Maltese dogs) also said that these dogs love to be groomed; they'll sit still for hours while you brush them. Maggie attacks the brushes (we've tried three different kinds) every time you pull them out.

She also constantly torments my dog, Freddy. She bites him incessantly, no matter how much he growls and snaps at her. I used to scold him, but now I figure that she's got a lesson to learn: Leave the big dog alone or he will eat you!

When you walk through the house, she nips at your heels everywhere you go. Her bark is hysterical, so we're pretty ineffective when we try to scold her for doing that while we're cracking up.

When she goes outside, she wants you to chase her to come back in. That's not so funny. She thinks it's great, though, so we're working on showing her that we'll just desert her and leave her to the wolves if she doesn't start minding. She's not catching on to the threat. At least she pees outside, so I guess there is a bright side.

Dad says it's all our fault. We took a perfectly good dog and ruined her because we can't help but spoil her rotten. (That's what he says happened to him, too, by the way). He also says we picked the independent one on purpose because we wanted a dog just like us. But, she's just too cute, so what are we supposed to do? We're hopeless at the heavy discipline around here.

It's basically a big circus around the house these days, and the ringmaster is a 2 pound dog who's got all the people jumping through her hoops. Maybe if we give her a whip, she'll take over total control of the humans and bring order once again...