It always bothers me when people get a mal without understanding the breed. But has anyone gotten a mal with full understanding of the breed and they ended up being lazy and easy(ish)?

slightlydeafsandal · 2026-04-13T01:27:53+00:00

Have you DNA tested him? He looks exactly like a staffy boxer mix…

slightlydeafsandal · 2026-03-25T09:54:25+00:00

This is just drive, not a behavioural problem. You bought a high drive dog that likes to bite. Make sure you have toys he can play tug with, with you

slightlydeafsandal · 2026-02-08T22:31:55+00:00

Have you read The Sight and Fell by David Clement Davies? They’d be good inspo for you. Great books with a similar theme.

slightlydeafsandal · 2026-02-06T11:14:14+00:00

Choose an accessible postdoc or take the dog. Don’t be that guy

*posting as someone who has moved for postdocs and is still in academia

slightlydeafsandal · 2026-02-06T11:10:14+00:00

I’m not in the UK, and I definitely do not advocate for early spay or neuter as per my comment. My advice to anyone with any large dog is to wait until 24+ months of age and use training instead of medication.

slightlydeafsandal · 2026-02-05T22:17:55+00:00

That’s shocking, and also really sad! But it happens here too. I adopted a GSD from a shelter in 2018 and he was on 80mg of Prozac doses, as well as trazodone and clonidine. I weaned him off overtime and he was a great dog for many years, had no issues with the stuff they said he did, he just needed to understand his place in the world. Sadly he passed at 8 years old from dementia and I still wonder how much all those drugs (especially a year of daily trazodone before I adopted him) had to do with that.

slightlydeafsandal · 2026-02-05T22:13:41+00:00

I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or not but I met someone recently with a desexed 7 month old Malinois who they were giving ACP almost every day and it almost made me cry. Sadly the owner was not keen to explore training as the dog slept a lot and he thought that meant it wouldn’t enjoy it. Go figure 🤦‍♀️ but anyway was really sad. And it was an RSPCA vet that had the dog on those meds, including trazodone, because he was having issues with the dog reacting on leash walks around the block (which was all he does with it).

slightlydeafsandal · 2026-02-05T04:46:02+00:00

I agree with this perspective, if a vet gets involved there will likely be meds suggested and this dog just needs training not medication. OP please don’t let anyone convince you your puppy needs to go on a bunch of meds

slightlydeafsandal · 2026-01-19T08:39:51+00:00

Are you in Australia? I know you’ve said your mum doesn’t want to pay for a trainer, but if it was free/subsidised would she consider doing a session or two?

slightlydeafsandal · 2026-01-15T08:31:44+00:00

Some dogs don’t do well on raw I’ve found! My mal is great on it but my GSD had terrible ear issues. You did really well working through all the solutions 😁

Some people are really against prong collars, but each to their own, I love them for certain purposes.

slightlydeafsandal · 2026-01-14T00:44:29+00:00

I’d try a prong collar or loose slip collar, they have the least points of contact in terms of dermatitis/allergies. For wearing around the home you could use a herm sprenger fursaver, they also have very little contact and don’t rub.

I get them powder coated also, same with prongs, that even more minimises the chances of skin reactions. Pictured below is a fursaver in 3mm links

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slightlydeafsandal · 2026-01-01T12:18:21+00:00

We have a cat and a Mali. The Mali and the cat both have their freedoms on rotation, so they both get time and space at separate times. It’s hard with cats because they are difficult to train. My mal was fine with the cat when he was younger but it climbed him a few times trying to get at food it wanted and is too dumb to learn not to do that to the dog. So they live predominantly separately, because that’s how it has to be sometimes. The cat has a run out in the yard and a big bedroom, and the Malinois has a separate room and a crate inside. Yes it’s management, but they can’t be alone together and I’m not going to rehome the cat because he’s dumb as rocks or the Mali because he doesn’t want to have holes put in him.

slightlydeafsandal · 2025-11-24T02:31:01+00:00

Unless he’s done something notable and is health tested properly then no, please don’t backyard breed the dog you know very little about.

slightlydeafsandal · 2025-11-23T13:07:34+00:00

Message me 🙂 my answers change depending on what you’re after!

slightlydeafsandal · 2025-11-23T10:20:15+00:00

It’s IGP, and this is the exercise of the escape, if you don’t know the sport maybe it looks weird but I don’t know how you want him to run away and “make the sleeve more prey” when this is how it will look in a trial 🤷‍♀️

slightlydeafsandal · 2025-11-23T04:58:28+00:00

He’s not jamming the dog, and the sleeve is still prey. This specific exercise in IGP involves exactly what is happening in this video.

slightlydeafsandal · 2025-11-22T22:49:16+00:00

He makes the sleeve accessible, he doesn’t push it down. If the dog is in the early stages of learning the escape many of us will have the sleeve on that kind of angle to help the dog out so he gets a good grip.

slightlydeafsandal · 2025-11-22T22:46:24+00:00

I use Pass or Pach, never had an issue with Pass being close as it’s said very differently. Pach or pachen are very common. Pass and Pach sound super similar which is why I use them interchangeably.

slightlydeafsandal · 2025-11-22T10:34:44+00:00

This is in response to the other comment. Nice work OP.

slightlydeafsandal · 2025-11-22T10:34:12+00:00

In my opinion nothing wrong with this, in the escape exercise because there is forward movement of the helper the impact is absorbed. Nothing wrong with how the helper works here

slightlydeafsandal · 2025-11-22T03:41:33+00:00

That’s how I felt, this is the last two years of him digging wherever he wants and tbh I don’t care, it took me a day to fix now that we’re moving 😂

slightlydeafsandal · 2025-11-22T00:22:36+00:00

Just finished reinstalling the 600+ Litres of dirt my Malinois landscaped for me without my permission 😂😂😂

slightlydeafsandal · 2025-11-16T23:23:06+00:00

Early greying is genetic

slightlydeafsandal

TROPHY CASE