The shelter said she's around 10-13 weeks and not purebred, but i don't care. anyways her name is Ellie and she likes to ruin and chew things. important things. but i LOVE her more than i love my own brother (no offense)!! i just started socialize and train her, do you have any advice? i'm just scared a little if i ruin something, she will get... even MORE crazy.

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https://www.reddit.com/r/BelgianMalinois/s/FoB8pCllFU

When did you first wash your puppies? I got mine last night and took him to my own vet this morning and the vet told me he needs another two vaccinations before I wash him but he reeks of pee!
Any advice? (Pics to entice some answers! 🤣)

Update: he took his first warm bath and sat like a champ! Blow dried with warm air until thoroughly dried and is now sleeping on his fresh clean bedding! 😊 He was shivering quite a bit after but I think it’s from fear of the new experience. Thanks everyone!

This was my silly land shark Fred! He passed away 3 years ago but whenever people here share pics of their Mals I enjoy them and think of Fred ❤️ so keep the photos coming and love your mals

Has anyone got one or knows anything about a Belgian Malinois., got this girl, about 9 weeks old atm, I thought i was getting a small shrunk down version of a german sheperd, then I got i home and did some research, and OMFG what have i just got. Should I be worried because from reading things on google ive got anxiety and thinking about selling her . From what im reading these dogs should come with warning labels! Whats people thoughts? Is google right am I going to regret this if I keep her or is it exaggerated and just gonna be like having a german shepherd.

Well it is now time. My sweet baby Laci has finally reached maturity to where I can put a real collar on her.

She has been wearing a chain training collar for 3 years because she was so strong as a puppy she ripped out of her puppy collars and I couldn’t afford to keep paying for them.

The changing of the collar hit deeper than I thought it would. This chain has seen and been through of all of the training and fun times we have put in to know each other better. I will be saving the chain collar with me until I die.

Save your collars please. Remember the good times you have with them as they grow.

Hi everyone, here is my KNPV Belgian Malinois puppy Azula, she’s 17 weeks old and ten hands full

She’s doing really well and is truly the sweetest thing who loves people and animals, we’re busy building neutrality but it’s one step at a time

The biggest problem is that I’m not allowed to go out the living room (where her crate is) because she’ll be all dramatic about it. Does anyone have tips on how to work with this?

And any other tips are welcome! I do have experience with working dog breeds but Azula is my first Malinois so I want to give her the best life possible

This is my 7mo sweet baby Remi (Remington), when we went in to get his first set of vaccinations the vet tech made note that only one of his testicles had descended at that point in time. Well, fast forward to now and still only one of his testes has descended. Originally I had wanted to wait until he was maybe one and a half to two years old to get him neutered that way he could be fully developed but, I figured the risks associated with only one testicle descending out weighed the benefits of waiting for him to be fully grown. So, I scheduled his surgery to get fixed and wouldn't you know it, his doctor called me today after the surgery to tell me that Remi is in fact a hermaphrodite! He had one uterine horn. The testicle that did not descend was only about half the size it should have been and the tube it was supposed to descend down was actually attached to his intestine! On top of that, he has had a limp on and off for the past couple months...well it has been getting really bad this past week so I brought him in for that as well and they did x-rays, just to find out it's literally growing pains! Which was a relief because I was not looking forward to a $5,000 orthopedic surgery of sorts lol. All In all, thank God for pet insurance and Care Club through our local VCA Clinic. At the end of the day, I always knew my boy was special.

I see loads of posts, almost daily, about people wanting help with their dog reacting badly to other dogs or children etc. Here is something that I found to be a great help/solution, its called "Cash Machine". Hope you and your beautiful babies are having a great day/night guys 💜

I don’t even get the pup until the 26th and I’ve already spent $1,600 on him 😂😂😂 I keep telling myself I’ve bought enough toys, training stuff, and essentials. Then I find myself spending another $100 on stuff. I need to chill. I’m just excited and want to be prepared for this ball of energy

Edit: I didn’t mean for “going into debt” to be so serious haha. Im not in a bad financial position what so ever but it definitely compounds buying blindly. I appreciate the concern.

So many people ask me what Daisy is and I’ve been saying probably Dutch Shepherd or Malinois but now we have confirmation it’s kinda both!

On one parents side it’s all Dutch & Mal crosses with no other breeds noted. The other parent was the one that had the chow chow, great pyranese and GSD.

So curious how she ended up at a shelter

TLDR: This might be a silly question but with this combo if you were asked what she is what would you say?

Just say she’s a Mal? Am I overthinking this?! 😂 Just wanna be accurate when people ask without breaking down her genetics. And I’m just so excited to learn more about my perfect girl Daisy 🌼

And she is a convo starter that’s for sure! I wanna be prepared for the next one 🤓

9 meses de puro amor y fidelidad 🤎

One of my mals (about 18 months) is starting to figure out how to play with toys. He’s a rescue, and very sweet but my priority is setting him up for success. We’ve started with the tug, but he’s confused and has grabbed onto my forearms (not enough to hurt) and I just say no then show the tug and when he gets it, praise. BUT we were playing in the yard he likes to chase me and we run around, then he grabbed my calf (it hurt a little, but obviously not an actual bite).

What’s the best way to make it clear to him he doesn’t use his teeth with me, only with toys?

Ghost was alone for 30 seconds, here's the result

Hey yall! New mal owner here! I was hoping for some advice.

Biscuit is 15 weeks old, I’ve had her since 11 weeks. We’ve got the basics down (come, sit, plotz, up down, look, go, bring, etc). And we are well on our way with intermediate stuff (place, wait, heel, with me, guard, front). We gamify most things cuz that seems to be her jam. But no matter how engaged she is, she reacts to everything lol we have a second dog (rescue, good boy, not exactly thrilled, stubborn boy). I’ve at least dealt with the angry interactions thru resource sharing, but she still jumps/leaps at him, barks whenever she hears an unfamiliar noise or if she hears another dog barking (including ours who barks too much lol)

Im not asking to squash her instincts, just redirect them. Sometimes “find it” works, toss some treats on the ground but I highly doubt food will work effectively on reactivity long term for her. I often separate her from the distraction but she locks on sometimes and it’s tough to bring her back. And even when I get her attention back she’s searching for the distraction. I’m just trying to get a handle on these things while shes young. Cuz what a dog, she’s so smart it’s pretty wild. She’ll ultimately be my companion dog and I’d like to train her well enough to travel with me.

If anyone has clever tips or tricks for this, I’m all ears. She’s leashed with me 90% of the time and I’ve been slowly giving her more freedom as her recall is about 95% and we’ve finally gotten potty training under control.

Thanks in advance!

I recently released how lonely my Mal is. I was in school, my sister just isn’t here, and I have workaholic parents. So she’s home alone for at least 10-12 hours a day. I’ve started to take her out a lot more. Going from 10-15 minutes outside to a little more than an hour. Within the 5-6 month of me doing this she seems a lot closer to me, she’s lost very noticeable weight. And her being 9 losing weight is amazing. I’ve also taken her to a park and a cafe a few times. I would love to start training her but she’s just like this family. So fucking stubborn 😭

I honestly don’t know why, but I’ve just been feeling like It’s my life’s duty to make sure she has a good happy life. Cause it is!! But recently it’s getting to a point where I’m like crying if I forget to play with her during the day😭 she does seem completely different vs how she was. I honestly wish we could communicate with our dogs. I just wanna make sure she’s actually happy🫠

I'm just saying, if my maligator saw this, she'd jump into space.

Hello! I’m fostering a malinois from the shelter (not my first mal). She’s a sweet girl who has had a huge disservice done to her by her previous owners. She doesn’t know anything, the only “training” I can tell she has is potty training. This isn’t the biggest problem, I can tell she’s going to be easy to train once she decompresses more.

The issue is that she is horrible in the crate, she does not relax. She moves the crate everywhere, barks, pants, she’s having a meltdown. I had her in a wire crate initially but she would move the crate and then pull items inside to shred so I bought her a ruffland which has worked well, she can’t get out, can’t bring anything in, but she can still move it around the room.

I’ve stopped crating her at night after a neighbor complained about the noise. I WFH so I’ve started crating her during the day as I do with my resident dog. I feed her all her meals in the crate (door open, she voluntarily goes in). She is also very attached to me, she wants to be with me all of the time. I try to keep it strictly business with her to not make this anxiety worse.

This isn’t my first malinois but it is my first foster dog, my other two mals were also from the shelter. One was a total mess and aggressive around the crate and the other way easy, average crate training experience. I’ve only had her for a week now and I do feel like every day is a bit better in all aspects besides the crate. Here are the things people commonly suggest for crate training that don’t work with her:

-music
-tv
-covering the crate
-staying in the room
-kong/high value - she wont eat it, too stressed
-noise machine
-eating her meals inside (she does this)

And no she can’t just be left outside of the crate, she is destructive and I have another dog and cats that she doesn’t need to interact with. Also, being with me 24/7 will only make her worse. Please share any advice or hopeful stories, I did not think fostering her would be this hard. 🫩

TLDR; Foster mal horrible in the crate, common fixes aren’t working. She needs to be crated daily, I have other animals and work. Too destructive and dangerous to be left out. Has separation anxiety. Please share advice or stories of your experiences. Thank you.

So my baby girl, Shelby, is an ACD/Malinois mix. She’s crazy and silly and wonderful. She’s also extremely unpredictable. Her life before we took her in is unknown as I rescued her from a couple who took her off of the streets. At the time I was not aware of her breed and neither was the couple we rescued her from. Since then I have learned a lot about her and her temperaments. She has been a scared, reactive girl for most of the 2 1/2 years we’ve owned her. Since then she has changed a lot and really come out of her shell. She’s absolutely more confident now and more comfortable with us and she can actually let herself relax and fully play now. It was amazing to see the shift in her demeanor.

Having said that, she still guards resources and has attacked two of the smaller animals in my house as well as (as of last night) nipped my babies ear. She’s shown us several signs of aggression and we’ve just been harder on our boundaries and rules, and harder on ourselves about giving her more mental and physical stimulation to try and wear her out. It feels like nothing has worked. I can’t help but feel like I’ve done her wrong up to this point, though. I don’t want advice on what I could have done at this point, I need advice on what to do moving forward.

We called the local shelter because we don’t know anyone who can take her. And we’ve contacted over a dozen rescues trying to find a better home for her and this was a few months ago with the most recent attack of one of the smaller pets. Most of them didn’t even bother to respond and the few that did said they don’t have a place for a dog like Shelby. One rescue has maintained contact with me trying to find a home for her. But we still haven’t after 3 months of contact. The shelter asked us if they’d like us to take her, but if they did take her she would be euthanized. This is the only shelter in my county and I have no other options. We opted not to let them euthanize and brought her back home. Animal control showed up and everything feels like a complete shit show. She has to be quarantined while I am taking care of an 8 month old, that she attacked mind you ! I’m feeling so overwhelmed and stressed and I don’t know what to do anymore.

My family and I do not have time, money or energy at this point to give her the training and attention she needs and I am at a loss. I need some insight on what you would do moving forward or what the most humane way of approaching this situation is. I still love her and am so devastated that things have not worked out, but my family and I cannot care for her. I will not jeopardize my son or pets’ safety anymore.

I apologize if this all over the place. It’s been a super emotional 24 hours and I am desperate.

There is no better place to be than in the mountains in the fall.

Pictured above is Orion(left) and Ajax (right) good boys.

Hey all, we got what we thought was a German Shepherd nearly two years ago. I’ve always had a pretty strong suspicion that he was mixed with something else.

One DNA test later, my suspicion was confirmed: 70% German Shepherd, 26% Belgian Malinois, and the remaining percentage from a few other breeds.

All in all, I have virtually no complaints about his behavior, except that he has trouble settling. When we’re chilling in our game room, I’ll toss him a toy, and he’ll check it out for maybe 30 seconds. Then he goes on patrol. He walks through the house almost like he’s doing a security sweep. He’ll drop by to check in, then head back out.

We’ve got basic obedience down: sit, lay, stay (also used to have him wait before taking a treat), release (to break a stay), heel, middle, recall, and place. So he’s not a stranger to structure.

I’m trying to figure out whether this is a breed trait I need to work with rather than against, something I can train out, or something I should embrace and give some direction.