Working & Sport Dogs
A group dedicated to members who are interested in, or actively participating in, sports and... View more
Organizers:
- Organized by
-
-
New Malinois Question
-
New Malinois Question
After a horrible experience with our first Mal we are trying again. We have two questions, one what sex Belgian Malinois is best for a home environment with our youngest child being 14 years old. We do not have any other dogs and my wife and I are very active with the dog. Two, is there a list of command common traing commands? Sit, stand, down, come ect?
-
22 Replies
-
Anyone answer these?
-
Usually I think the females are a bit more subdued especially if the male is not fixed. I don’t know what your planning to do with the dog as far as activities go. When the time comes to get the pup if he/she is just to be a family dog you want to make sure you are getting a lower drive pup as compared to a working line dog, or a working line that you are sure has a lower drive. Stay with the site as there are many people here that have more experience than me with the breed. The 3 basic commands are 1) Stay 2) Come 3) Leave It. These are life savers for the dog. The commands will come after a couple months of luring and shaping. I would also submit this question to the Ask Me Anything segment and get Robert’s opinion.
-
-
You can really go with whatever sex of the dog you want. I have kids and the smallest is 3 and we have a male GSD with high drive.
In terms of the commands that Robert uses – it’s the same commands you see anywhere.
-Sit
-Stay
-Stand
-Leave it
-Heel
-Speak
-etc…
If you want to ask really important training questions – please submit them to Robert directly. The community area is still fairly new and is still growing so some posts might go unanswered until we have a large amount of experience members.
Here is the link to submit questions – https://robertcabral.com/member-questions/
-
I remember that there were serious issues with the first dog, though not all the details. What happened to it? If you get another Mal, what is to say that it will not turn out the same or worse? I’m not saying it will, but it is a fair point of reflection, and also not an unreasonable case to consider. Have you looked into other breeds? I’m trying to be honest and look out for the well being of the dog to be. Not all breeds are the same and you are picking one of the hardest dog breeds to live with.
-
Thank all of you for your response. I asked about commands because there are so many with similar meanings (down,plats) (climb,up) we just want to be consistent. Ed we put her down. As you know she bit everyone in my house, except my wife. We used three different trainers and Robert’s advice her not being normal for a female mal. Finally, after another unprovoked attack on my daughter we found a trainer in WY who was interested in trying to help her as a last ditch. My wife and I drove 30hrs across the country to hand deliver the dog to him. During the drive the dog broke free of its tether and attacked me as i was sleeping and my wife was driving. We left the dog with the trainer and after 6 weeks the trainer said she is a single person dog with no children dog and that he would consider putting her down with her history. So my daughter (very comfortable with Phoebe and knows her)in-law picked her up since she had a friend with Mal experience. She wanted to meet her. 4 days later she was bit bad and the dog broke her wrist. I had the dog put down, she was not right and we sent a specimen away to UCLA to have her genes tested. Soooo, we want a Mal, we have learned and continue to learn this breed. We have the time, energy and a good level of experience to train this dog. We study a lot (daily) and have a good breeder (not an unknowing Amish breeder which knew nothing about these dogs and was just selling them). I believe we got a bad apple of a dog (sucks because this devastated my wife) yes we made some mistakes too, first was a horrible breeder. So commands, sex, temperament, drive, structure and consistent work with this animal we believe will help us have a functioning canine member for our family.
-
I’m terribly sorry for your loss
-
On the male or female, well, I would like to hear from others, but I like a female for a family dog. I think they are a bit more affectionate and not as aloof. I did not fix mine, so it is a bit messy when she gets her cycles, but it is not a big deal for us.
-
I am so sorry it read your horrible experience and your loss. I know many other Mal owners who are happy with their Mal. Let’s see why the DNA test shows. I am sorry for all your troubles.
-
We still have not received any results back. Not sure if we will due to Covid-19. We pick up a new female male, Klhoe. She is now 4.5 months, full of energy, mouthy as heck, we work her all day, everyday and she is awesome. Hasn’t bitten anyone lol.
-
I am happy for you! Gréât to read your female mal is doing well. I am waiting for my first Malinoise male puppy. I should be getting the call in 2 weeks now. Had to wait for 8 weeks. I do have a fear of how bad is the Malinoise puppy biting gets? My Jack Russell was very very mouthy when she was a puppy. It took her about full year to stop biting. But it was nothing, nothing like the pictures you see with Malinoise puppy bites on internet… I get scared seeing those pictures…
-
At 9 weeks when I brought Hank home he was very much living up to the “maligator” nickname. The first 2-3 days we rough housed even though I know that can make it worse. I’m pretty quick with my hands and mostly avoided the bites then push him away and he’d come charging back. I say mostly avoided but my arms tell a different story. I was worried the ASPCA might take me from him lol. The first time I was luring him on a heel he missed the treat and a canine went through all three layers of skin on the knuckle. The first time we were playing rough he got me with a textbook forearm bite and tug.
After those 3 days I stopped the rough play. His bites / mouthing is now WAY softer than the out of the box bite. I don’t allow the bites anymore and starting sticking my hand all up in there if he persists. There’s probably a gigantic flaw with this but early on I taught him “kisses”. So now we he gets mouthy I say “bad bite. kisses”. 90% of the time I get what I ask for. If he’s too amped up we go walk it off for a couple miles.
Good luck! Hope you have as much fun as we are.
-
You certainly have to becareful in the early stages. We refrain from early hard play. Still play but have limits. We worked hard to find a lower drive Mal. If she gets too crazy we tell her to sit and she stops. Not always easy but we work on that from the very beginning with her to practice disengagement. You have to know what is too much before your dog.
-
I was gonna do the opposite to make my puppy tired. Play rough. Thank you.Thank you. I will monitor the play and structure the training throughout the day & crate, crate, crate, crate train him.
-
Cory and Lisa,
I am so happy to hear that you now have a lovely pup that you are enjoying and making prgress with after the terrible experience you had with your first pup. Sadly, not all problems can be overcome. But it sounds like you now have a dog who will be a lifetime source of joy and will keep you on your toes! Congratulations!
Riggan
-
Absolutely! We are learning and so is she. She has been awesome with everyone in our house! Love her to death. She seems to have two levels of prey drive? Fun and crazy at home, inside and out. Take her to town and barks in the car at moving cars and walking around barks at cars and runners. She stressed out. Almost like two different dogs but she is still not aggressive. She calms down once she meets other people and dogs.
-
Thank you for sharing your experience. I had German Shepard, mixed breed between husky & labrador and so many more growing up. Non of my dog’s bites from mouthing were severe like the internet photos of Mal puppy mouthing… I guess I really need to structure schedule to keep my mal puppy trained until 6 months to a year…
-
-
The Mal puppy phase is very bittie. We play with her a lot so they get excited. I tried to work on teaching her to stop (no command) and place her in a sit from early on, before it became out of control. This seems to have taught her to disengage. But it’s think with these dogs the mouthyness somewhat comes with the territory.
-
-
-
-
-
Female has what we have been hearing. We will likely have two eventually but that would be a male and a female. Our breeder has actually chosen a male for us but would pick out a female that would be good for us too. Neither are shy or overly confident but are only 4 weeks old and we have met them already to really try to have them familiar with us.
-
In my experience, the sex is not as important as the temperament / personality. If you have a good breeder who has experience matching pups to people, I would go with his recommendation. My personal preference is males, but if a reputable breeder recommended a female for my situation, I would listen to their advice.
-
On having two I do not think it makes a difference as to male of female first. The main thing is to have 3-4 years between them and make sure dog #1 is “perfect” by the time you bring dog #2. When I was looking for my second dog I described my first dog to the shelter person doing the screening and she/he said, “so you want a perfect dog”. That was 5 years ago. Now we are onto #3 and we have 3 “perfect” dogs. Though some (or many) would disagree, and they would probably be considered (or turn into) living hell in most households, they are perfect in our family… LOL. My #1 was 3 when I brought in my #2 and I attribute how well #2 turned out in great part to #1’s example and temperament. #3 has been with us for 2.5 months and the same happened, but this time was #2 that greatly bounded with and is serving as the reference for #3 to model himself. Of course we do a lot of work with the dogs ourselves, but I think have stable dogs that the new dog can look up to to be very important. It is funny how the dog taking on the role model “adults” too.
-
Great info! We really thought that (2 dogs)could have helped us previously but there were other issues. We are listening to our breeders advice but are still doing our due diligence for our family to make this dog as successful as possible in our home. With what we have learned and experienced we are in a much better position to take this dog in and manage its migration into our family. We are very excited about this and are studying!
-
I have been using this website for list of commands….sorry I know this thread is over a year old but hopefully this still helps!! https://www4.uwsp.edu/psych/dog/languag1.htm
Log in to reply.