You can teach an old dog new tricks, but if you want your Maltese to learn some, it works best if you do the teaching when the dog is relatively young. It is written that a Maltese can be an 'easy study," because it is reputed to be quite an obedient breed of dog. Hopefully your Maltese will come with the attitude and temperament that is required to learn to do the tricks that you choose to teach it.

It is always wise to begin with obedience training which is important for your Maltese. The Maltese should be able to learn some basic commands like "sit," "stay," "down," and perhaps some others. You will be able to capitalize on the intrinsic intelligence and good attitude of your Maltese and the training process should go relatively smoothly for you. Remember, initially you are not teaching "tricks," you are teaching basic obedience commands which every dog should know before other and more elaborate commands are taught. It is also possible that you may want to consider enlisting the help of a professional dog trainer for some or all of the training that you would like your Maltese to have.

There are many theories about the best way to train dogs. There is a school of training which uses procedures which some may consider rather harsh but work with breeds that are more stubborn than the Maltese. The Maltese will respond to a more mild mannered approach. This will be a consistent, firm, but kind teaching of commands and tricks. The person doing the training needs to be well versed in animal training techniques. The Maltese breed will do well with training using a reward system.

Some of the more complicated tricks that one might choose to teach are those like: jumping through hoops, rolling over, playing dead and others. These are the tricks that will require the most work and possibly strain the patience of the person doing the training. Therefore, if you have completed the basic commands with ease and success, but find that the road to training the higher level tricks is straining your brain and you are beginning to feel your patience depart, you might want to contact the professionals who will help you learn better and more productive ways of teaching your Maltese the tricks. Doing this will probably also recharge your patience level. After you do all the training that you want to do, you will have an obedient, well trained Maltese.