Malamute or Havanese: Both Cost Level 4, Both Need You Home

Everything else on this page runs the way size predicts. This one does not, and it is the single most useful line for anyone choosing between them.

The Havanese rates 1/5 for tolerating time alone — the lowest score available — and its breed notes call it a velcro dog prone to separation anxiety. That is not an exaggeration or a temperament quirk. The breed spent centuries as a Cuban household companion with no working role whatsoever; it was selected purely for wanting to be with people. A Havanese will follow you between rooms, sit outside the bathroom door and position itself where it can see you. Left alone regularly for a full working day, a meaningful proportion of them develop genuine separation distress — vocalising, house-soiling, refusing food and pacing.

The Malamute's 2/5 is bad but it is bad differently. A Malamute left alone is bored rather than distressed, and it converts boredom into projects: digging, chewing, testing the fence. The dog is not panicking, it is unoccupied. That distinction matters because the fixes are different. Exercise and enrichment go a long way with a Malamute. With a Havanese, the answer is either genuinely gradual desensitisation work or a household that is simply not empty.

The practical conclusion is uncomfortable for anyone shopping on convenience: a small, quiet, flat-friendly dog is not automatically a low-demand dog. If your household leaves at eight and returns at six with nobody in between, the Havanese is arguably the worse fit of the two, and neither should be the choice.

Another tie that hides two unrelated jobs.

The Malamute's 4/5 is about volume. A thick double coat rated 5/5 for shedding, very heavy year-round, needing an undercoat rake worked to the skin two or three times a week, with two annual blows during which the wool comes away in sheets for a fortnight. It is straightforward, physical, and entirely doable at home. The recurring cost is a vacuum cleaner and your patience.

The Havanese's 4/5 is about texture. A long silky single-layered coat rated 2/5 for shedding means dead hair stays in the coat rather than falling out, which is exactly the condition in which mats form. On a Havanese they form fastest behind the ears, under the collar, in the armpits and around the harness line, and a matted small dog is not a cosmetic problem — mats tighten, pull on the skin and trap moisture. Prevention is a comb through to the skin most days, ten minutes, plus a professional groom every six to ten weeks for anyone not keeping the coat long themselves. Many owners settle on a shorter puppy clip, which reduces the daily job to something manageable and is entirely legitimate for a single-coated breed. The Malamute, by contrast, must never be clipped.

So the household experience is: the Malamute leaves hair everywhere and needs a rake; the Havanese leaves almost no hair and needs a comb every day plus a groomer on a schedule. The Havanese route costs more in money, the Malamute route costs more in cleaning.

The absolute figures are not close — $80–160 a month for the Havanese against $150–300 for the Malamute, and $1,200–2,300 in the first year against $2,000–4,000. Yet both sit at cost level 4/5, which is the rating that measures expense relative to what people expect.

For the Malamute the money goes where you would guess: food volume, and the fact that every weight-dosed item on the veterinary bill — prevention, anaesthesia, pain relief, antibiotics — is charged for a 90 pound animal.

For the Havanese it goes somewhere less obvious. Food is trivial. Grooming is not: a professional appointment every six to ten weeks over a 13 to 16 year life is one of the longest-running recurring costs of any breed here, simply because the dog lives so long. Purchase prices for Havanese puppies from health-tested lines are high. Dental care is a real budget line, as it is for most small breeds, and the breed's own list includes patellar luxation, cataracts, liver shunts and eye problems — several of which are surgical.

The lifespan point deserves emphasis. Sixteen years of insurance premiums, dental cleanings, grooming appointments and food is a longer total commitment than fourteen years, and small-breed insurance climbs steeply in the last third of life. A Havanese is cheaper per month and not necessarily cheaper per dog.

The Havanese is 5/5 for apartments and the Malamute is 1/5, and that gap is not only about square footage.

The Havanese needs about half an hour of walking a day at 2/5 exercise and 3/5 energy, and it genuinely enjoys indoor activity — it is a natural trick dog with a circus history, and at 4/5 trainability it takes to training games readily. A Havanese day can be satisfying without leaving the building, which is exactly why the breed suits small homes, older owners and anyone with limited mobility.

The Malamute needs two hours minimum with physical resistance in it. There is no indoor version and no rainy-day substitute, and in a warm climate the Arctic coat forces exercise into the first and last light for months of the year. A Malamute in a flat is not a smaller inconvenience than a Malamute in a house — it is the same dog with nowhere to put its energy.

Climate flips too. The Havanese has a light single coat with no insulating undercoat and needs a jumper in genuine cold, but it is comfortable in Caribbean heat, which is where it came from. The Malamute is the reverse.

On sociability, the Havanese leads with other dogs at 5/5 against 3/5 — it is one of the most reliably dog-social breeds there is, while the Malamute's tolerance narrows with same-sex adults. Around cats the Havanese is safe and the Malamute has genuine hunting drive that owners manage rather than eliminate. Both rate 4/5 with strangers, so neither is a guard dog, and both rate 3/5 for barking, which for the Havanese means an alert bark at the door rather than sustained noise.

Hip dysplasia, elbow dysplasia, hypothyroidism and cataracts appear on both lists, which is unusual for breeds this far apart in size, and all four are worth raising with either breeder.

The Havanese's list is dominated by small-breed and companion-breed issues. Patellar luxation — a kneecap that slips out of its groove — is common and ranges from a dog that occasionally hops a step to one that needs surgery. Liver shunts are a serious congenital problem in small breeds where blood bypasses the liver, and they usually show up early as a poorly growing puppy, unusual neurological behaviour after meals or repeated illness; bile acid testing is the diagnostic route. Deafness appears on the list and is screenable. Ear infections and allergies round it out, and dental disease is the ever-present small-dog issue that the list implies rather than states.

The Malamute's list is orthopaedic and northern-specific: hip and elbow dysplasia, bloat, epilepsy, progressive retinal atrophy, plus zinc-responsive dermatosis, inherited polyneuropathy and hereditary cataracts.

The practical difference for an owner is the shape of the risk. Malamute problems tend to be large, occasional and expensive — a bloat surgery, a hip. Havanese problems tend to be small, chronic and cumulative — a knee, an ear, a tooth, an eye, over sixteen years. Neither is cheaper in aggregate; they simply arrive on different schedules. Ask a Havanese breeder about patellar evaluation, eye certification, hearing testing and liver shunt history in the line, and ask a Malamute breeder for hip and elbow scores on both parents.