Click here to visit the most complete Maltese site on the WWW

Archived Message

ORIGINAL MESSAGE:
by Dennis

Tiffany is 3 lbs, and ten months old. We've had her about two weeks. She will not jump on to the bed or the couch. Se'll bark and carry on until we pick her up, but we can not get her to do it by herself. This can be annoying at night because she'll jump off of the bed to bark at the kids then wakes us up to get back on the bed. We don't think there is anything wrong with her and that this was just a learned behavior from her previous owners. Does anyone have any suggestions, or is she too small to jump that high?

DISCUSSION:

She is probably too small. I have seen this topic covered here before. You probably need to just make her some stairs and teach her how to use them. Congradulations on your little teeny girl. She sounds adorable..
-Ruth

I would be glad that your little maltese is not a jumper. Before anyone takes a puppy home from my house, they sign a contract, and one stipulation is that they don't allow their maltese to jump on and off of furniture. The reason for this is it can cause damage to the puppy's patellas. My puppy's are vet checked before leaving my house and patellas are always checked. Fortunately, my puppies have very strong patellas, but damage can occur from jumping.
-Carolyn Dahl

If you have the space for it, a ramp might work for you. We have two ramps in our house - a short one so the puppies can go out onto the enclosed patio and get back in, and a long one to get on and off the bed. Since we're not sure yet whether we'll need them forever, they're both temporary. Our king-sized bed doesn't have a footboard, so we turned a laundry basket upside down at one end of the foot of the bed, filled a boot box with books and wrapped it with a towel and put that on top of the laundry basket, then wrapped a 4-foot long, 12-inch wide bookshelf with an extra-large bath towel and placed one end of the shelf on the edge of the boot box so that the ramp parallels the foot of the bed. Gizmo and Niki learned to use it within minutes and seem to love it. It certainly helps us - we now get a full night's sleep and don't have to get up to pick up puppies and don't have to worry about having them fall off the bed or jump off the wrong way and hurt themselves.
-Tricia

Dennis: Our Skippy did the same thing. We took an old ottoman and put it at the foot of the bed. We just had to show him where to go to get on the bed and off . He has been using it ever since. Good luck with Tiffany .
-Pam

Taffy would not jump either and would whimper to get back up on the bed, now she can do it in a single hop. I do not encourage jumping tho. She gets very excited when she knows we are going somewhere, and one day was following me, jumping up on everything available closest to me. I guess this was so I would notice her, as if I don't :). Anyway, she jumped on the kitchen chair, and started to jump up on the table, slipped and fell. When she came down it was on the side of her face. This made her wobbly, scared me half to death, we were on our way to the vet but she snapped out of it. I had her checked anyway. She is much larger than your 3 pounder! Taffy is 7 pounds. I would build a little ramp or something for nightime, rather than wanting your little one to jump.
-Robin K.

I have trained my dogs not to jump up or down. My bed is too tall for them to jump from, as I am afraid they will injure a joint. I pick them up to put them on the bed, and if they need to get down, they wake me up and let me know. Same with the couch or chair. Injured joints are just too serious in these small breeds to risk it.
-Marsha A.

I have trained my dogs not to jump up or down. My bed is too tall for them to jump from, as I am afraid they will injure a joint. I pick them up to put them on the bed, and if they need to get down, they wake me up and let me know. Same with the couch or chair. Injured joints are just too serious in these small breeds to risk it.
-Marsha A.

Lucy has either never learned she can get up on the sofa or just likes the idea of someone picking her up and putting her there. I've always thought she was just too little to get up (7 lb) so when she wants up, I reach down to get her. But for the last week I had a little rescue boy just her size--he was up on that sofa in a flash as soon as my bottom hit the seat. So, guess it's not a size thing. Probably you are better off to let your kiddo be picked up. One finds that these fluff balls get spoiled and in charge very easily, so it's good for the human to be in charge of SOMETHING!
-cathy brown

My Maltese (Calcio) is a year old and I do not let him jump on or off things. He barks when he wants to get down. And if I am sitting on the couch he will jump up at me to let me know he wants to get up. I never let him up on the bed or couch if I am not right there. I have had a few times when someone was at the door and I went to let him down he jumped right out of my hands. But I don't think he realized what he did. If I was you I would be happy my puppy did not jump on or off anything. Everything I have read said they should not jump on or off things.
-Joanne Maltese

Thanks to everyone for their advice. We took a bed reading pillow (with the arms) and put in face down on the floor. Forcing part of it under the bed made a sturdy step for Tiffany. After showing it to her a couple of times she was up and down like a pro. She trots up on to the bed with the other girls, walking around just as proud as can be. Now she can check on the kids and get back on the bed with out waking us up.
-Dennis

Glad to hear all is at peace at the home front. Thank God for a good nights rest.
-Joanne Maltese