Thread: Malinois the King of Working dogs.

[=Fred_Rapa;16914][=Brad Griggs;14771]At the ASDA's in Ararat this year the GSD was the dominant GP breed...appears the services are yet to be totally sold on the dominance of the mal.[/]

True we only have 5 Mals in the dept atm...and more GSD's - but remember Brad, a Mal won it !!....mine.

I'm trying to even the numbers up but the brass is reluctant to get more Mal's due to them being 'harder to manage' (their words - not mine)

Fred[/]

I agree that a Mal is harder to manage than a GSD or Rotty, so what you need to work out for the extra management requirement is how much more performance is in the dog. If a Mal is 5% better than a GSD in performance and 50% harder to manage..........what's the point of creating work for 5%???.

Cheers
Nev

Most people experienced with both breeds say that Adam and I think you are probably right. GSD's and Rotties are similar in their responses and if you can train and handle one well you can seem to do same with the other. The first Mal I worked with was handler aggressive and I didn't trust it, so it wasn't a good introduction to the breed for me personally and found that particular dog over sensitive. The dog was good but not the best dog at the time, but learning more about them as time evolves, I don't thing anyone had enough experience with the breed to extract the dog's potential. The GSD felt like on old pair of worn in boots and the Mal was like a new pair 1/2 a size too small giving me blisters in the process. I know of a few good GSD trainers/handlers had trouble with Mal, but they are different I agree.

Cheers
Nev

[=adam VIPSS;16929]

From my own experience I found that the GSD and the Malinois are different to train but not harder.

One can be harder to train than the other, depends on the dog...but I know what you mean.

A lot of GSD people have problems with Malinois because they think the GSD way which is not the Malinois way.
Adam VIPSS[/]

Yes I agree...it's quite a challenge with both breeds and you need to treat each breed and dog separately, with Malinois' once you work out what they need 'stimulation' - as with all training, they seem more responsive to what you 'as the trainer/handler' requires....from my experience.

I've worked with dud Mal's and GSD's....both breeds have good points and bad. I do agree with our dept in looking at more GSD's than Mal's only because I believe we don't have enough dedicated handlers to achieve the full potential of any dog that we have. That's just not handler fault...its also due to operational demands.

Fred

[=adam VIPSS;16964]Fred

In comments to your last sentence I think that we all need to start somewhere and like yourself and like me the better dogs, force us in some way to learn and to change our training techniques in order to get the best out of them.

Also I'll add to that sentence....the worst dogs too ! You learn a lot from dogs that just don't want to play the game. With not always having the luxury of quality dogs appearing out of know where, I've had some interesting challengers with some not really up to standard dogs....better quality makes things so much easier. lol

You will find (this is just my logic) that some of your co workers That might have a GSD might want to change to the Malinois when they see what you can achieve, and that will force them to look at the training and also at the commitment it is needed to handle a dog with more drive.
Adam VIPSS[/]

Unfortunately or fortunately (in some occasions) the handlers don't have the luxury of choosing what dog they get, that the trainers/instructors call.

Drive in the dog...also needs drive in the handler.


Fred