Malinois X GSD - Page 1

This post is a combination of observations (in case other people might find it interesting) and questions of my own regarding my Malinois X GSD.  My post after this is as comprehensive as possible to provide people with necessary information but the TL:DR verions is that my  MalXGSD is not at all what I was expecting.  It's nothing dire or dangerous, and I'm certainly not over-dogged (rather the reverse).  He's a bit of a puzzle though.

As background: I've always had GSDs.  I grew up with working dogs, and I've had three of my own.  My current GSD is working line, and while he had some major behavioural issues when I adopted him (at roughly a year of age) he's turned into a wonderful dog, and a great sport partner.  He's always been very dog social but his behavioural issues prevented me from getting a second dog when he was younger.  Now those issues (reactivity but not aggression) have been sorted out I wanted to get a second younger dog.  I was looking for a sound dog to continue as a casual sport and training partner for myself as my older dog slows down, but I also really wanted another dog to be a companion to mine.

I ended up with a purprose bred (i.e. for sport) Malinois X GSD mix, an unneutered male 16 months old (who I'll just refer to as the Mal for simplicity). I was very picky about ensuring character compatibility between the two dogs because I wanted to avoid potential conflicts.  In that regard I was very successful.  The dogs genuinely like each other and get along brilliantly (though of course I make certain that they each have their own private space and a fair share of toys/treats/my attention/separate training/etc.).  

The good: The Mal is a very healthy dog, both mentally and physically. His conformation is not the best (he’s somewhat cow hocked and pigeon toed) but he’s fast, extremely agile, and physically courageous. He also jumps like a deer – I haven’t tried him at 8 feet, but 6 feet is no deterrent and he sails over anything shorter as though it’s not there.  He’s also physically tough.  Even though he’s small (just 55 lbs, tiny compared to my 78 lb GSD) he’s built as though he’s made of steel wire.  More than once he’s taken a tumble while working, playing, or jumping and he bounces back (sometimes literally) as though he’s on springs, with no signs of any injury.    He has plenty of ball and prey drive when engaged, and will not give up. He also has an admirable off switch in the house and is fundamentally a very peaceful, amiable little soul. 

The "bad" (qualified because it's not necessarily bad by other people's standards): He doesn’t appear to think at all like a GSD.  All of the previous dogs I've worked with have been both clever and methodical thinkers.  By that I mean that they pick up on subtleties and use past learning experiences to work through problems.  My current GSD is amazing to work with because he will eagerly engage and experiment to see what the correct course is, learning quite complicated new behaviours in a very short period of time through being sequentially rewarded for working out individual parts.  He extrapolates beautifully, too, so that he’ll work out which new object I’m asking him to fetch independently (for example) by rationalizing it’s the different thing he doesn’t yet recognise by name.  In contrast the Mal doesn’t think, he *does* and he’ll keep repeating the unsuccessful behaviour ad nauseam, not stopping to consider that it's not working and a different course would be better. He’s not stupid by any means, but he forms hard wired behaviours very quickly that are difficult to correct because feedback doesn’t seem to register with him. He’s also much slower to internalize a new behaviour even if it’s relatively simple.  Something that would take my GSD two or three tries before he mastered it takes the Mal nine or more.  I’ve tried breaking things up into smaller increments and it doesn’t work because he leaps to  the “doing” phase without thinking, even when I’m asking him for concerted attention.  I’ve tried back-chaining from a known behaviour as well and he’s no more (or less) likely to pick it up than if I work sequentially forward.

He also doesn’t seem to catch subtleties at all.  To my GSD my lack of reaction to something he’s done tells him he’s not on course and he’ll correct. He’ll also incorporate any direction I give seamlessly.  When he was younger he’d pause and double check, but now if I direct him  he adjusts instantly.  The Mal doesn’t seem to register cuing behaviour at all – positive *or* negative.  He’s in such a frenzy to do whatever that he performs, and then sits there with his brain on “spin”.  He gets confused very easily, and overloads easily as well, so it’s important to be gentle with him – but that raises the problem that most of what the handler is trying to convey sails right over his head. He’s biddable, however, because when he understands what’s wanted he performs brilliantly and with considerable precision once he's learned it.  It’s finding an effective way to reach that state of comprehension that has me stymied! Up until now I've taken the slow route of patience, breaking things up into small steps, and repetition, but ideally I would like to teach him to be operant (i.e. learn how to learn) rather than reinventing the wheel for each new behaviour.

One characteristic that I find particularly baffling for a herding dog – the Mal doesn’t seem to use his vision much at all.  He’ll blow right past a thrown ball, for example, and hunt for it frantically with his nose when it’s a foot away in plain sight on the ground. (His vision and hearing are fine, I had them checked.) Maybe my other dogs have all been anomalies but I’m accustomed to the fact that GSDs *watch*.  Nothing gets past the eagle eyes of my current dog, whether it’s a bird flying high overhead or someone walking half a kilometer away in the park.  He might not react to whatever it is, but I know he knows it’s there.  The Mal relies on his nose so much that he doesn’t see or hear nearly as much as I would like him to.

When he’s in drive he has a hard time switching gears and/or coming out of it.  I’m working on this, encouraging him to listen to verbal commands, check in, and to settle down between actions, but it’s very much a work in progress and he reverts very easily.  His retention of newly learned behaviours is also spotty.

As a final “flaw” (at least to me) he’s too soft.  He’s so handler soft that he craters at disapproval or failure instead of merely checking himself.  If that softness extended to listening to cues this wouldn’t be a problem because I’d happily go more slowly and gently with him, but he flips between being an oblivious brick and a quivering pudding.  I should stress that isn’t a result of heavy handed punishment – I’m mostly a positive trainer, and only use things like body blocking, no-reward markers, and denial of a reward as adversives, focusing on making learning as easy and fun as possible.  Even if I was inclined to use punishment I wouldn’t with this dog because he’d collapse under hard correction. He gets upset and frustrated very easily if he realizes he’s done something wrong and/or what he wants isn’t going to happen, and the disappointment causes him to lose the ability to think completely. I’m frankly a little baffled at how to encourage him to think things through instead of acting/reacting because he doesn’t appear to have the capacity.  I’ve done the usual attention building, wait for permission, and relaxation exercises, and he performs, but as an “all or nothing”.  There is no middle ground between doing and not doing for him and you can virtually hear the gears of effort grinding laboriously at any pause or delay.  He learns by rote and repetition not by thoughtful application.  As an entirely personal complaint I find he also lacks depth of character compared to my other dogs, who were all very distinctive individuals with marked personalities.  The Mal is a bland generic “dog”, albeit a pleasant one.

As an overall judgement I’d say he’s a surpassingly nice little dog, and meets all of the essential criteria I was looking for.  My wall-of-text criticism doesn't mean that he's awful, far from it. He's a nice little fellow and I plan to spend the rest of his life working and living with him. I'm into dog sport for fun, not to win, so I don't need a star perfomer. That said my next dog is going to be another pure GSD – it’s not the training challenges with the Mal I object to, but the fact that I find him too soft and frankly a little boring.  My current Hell-dog of a GSD is always a real pleasure (as well as a challenge) to work with, and I find I miss that with the Mal. He’s very easy to live with but otherwise dull.

So now to my questions:  For those of you who have worked with Malinois or crosses-- is this lack of thought and emotional brittleness normal, or is it just this dog?  (I had considered that perhaps it was attributable to lack of maturity and familiarity but I've had him for four months now.  He's well over two years of age, and has accepted me completely.  Around the house I have to be careful not to change direction too suddenly because I'll tread on him. He's typically right behind me or at my feet unless it's his down time, or an area like the kitchen where he's forbidden to go, so lack of bonding is not the issue.) What would you suggest to help him learn to think rather than just hurtling himself at everything reflexively? 

"It's nothing dire or dangerous, "

 

are saying this as a good or bad thing?

 

aparently my dog comes from a cross mal/gsd that was marketted internationlly as a pure GSD, the worst kept secret in working dog world at the time, false  peds on hundreds of dogs all over the world by now if it is true.

 

my dog's speed and athleticism and ball obession seems to support the hypothesis.

 

i think you need to change as you are smarter than the dog so it is too much to ask to change the dog. play to his strenghts and avoid training in his weakness.

 

anything more specific would require a vid of how you interact together when dog is in drive.

 

finally it would be quiet misleading to extrapolate yr expereince of one dog to anthing general about the cross.

 

i like the speed and potential recklessness that the mal seems to bring to the table.

 

 

 it would be quiet misleading to extrapolate yr expereince of one dog to anthing general about the cross

 

Agreed completely, but I can only say he's very un-GSD-like.  I was wondering if the characteristics rang bells with people who have handled Mals, or if my guy's a one-off.

 

aparently my dog comes from a cross mal/gsd that was marketted internationlly as a pure GSD

 

Why on earth would someone do something like that?  Not the crossing -- I'm no breed purist and a good working dog with desirable working qualities is more important than a paper trail, so purposeful crosses make perfect sense to me.  But why the elaborate fakery?  You'd think money alone wouldn't be worth the trouble.

 

are saying this as a good or bad thing?

 

It's a good thing, mostly.  I'm not one of those people who comes on the board to wail about a dangerous dog that they're not handling appropriately, and are consequently having real problems with. I'm not going to rehome him, either, and I'll keep working with him to try to address our issues no matter how slowly it goes.  It's a bit of a bad thing that I wish he had more fire. My other dogs were all more forceful and my current GSD would be a hell beast in the wrong hands.  I adore him, and I've developed a real taste for the hell-on-wheels attitude. Training the Mal after my GSD is like being downgraded from high performance sports car to a 20 year old Toyota.  It runs, but it doesn't have the zing. :D

 

play to his strenghts and avoid training in his weakness.

 

That's precisely the problem, he doesn't have clear strengths.  I've tried working him in drive but he has a very hard time focusing and learning. Out of drive his brain is set on "spin" and he has trouble focusing because he's anticipating being put into drive. I've tried going faster and more intensely and he completely blanks out.  I've tried going slower and in smaller increments and that works, but it's painfully slow.  I suspect I might have to keep grinding away in low gear for a while, and maybe he'll learn to engage his brain.  I asked because I thought there might be something I've missed. 

 

I don't actually have the means to take video (I'm probably the only Luddite in the world who still only has a "dumb" phone) but I'll see if a friend might be interested in helping me out.

First off, I LOVED reading your post.  Cracked me up at some of your examples - LOL

Secondly . . . while I've not worked directly with MAL's before personally, I've known several (working and just great housepets).  Most of those owners informed me that as puppy's their MAL's were "dumb as fenceposts" (not my words by any means) and that with time and patient training - they all turned out to be wonderful.  Albeit they never reacted as my GSD's ever have, but they were all quite lovely dogs.

So, my point is that maybe just with some time gowing up mentally, he'll catch on.

Not that this really helps you, but thought I'd share anyway

Good luck with him . . . as overall he sounds nice!  I think when we're so used to a specific breed, it's hard to retrain OUR brains to interact/train differently.  Sometimes we expect that other breed to have similar ways of thinking, learning, etc.

"aparently my dog comes from a cross mal/gsd that was marketted internationlly as a pure GSD


"Why on earth would someone do something like that? Not the crossing -- I'm no breed purist and a good working dog with desirable working qualities is more important than a paper trail, so purposeful crosses make perfect sense to me. But why the elaborate fakery? You'd think money alone wouldn't be worth the trouble."

number of reasons - GSD is/was more lucrative $ so saying it is a GSD earns more cash, hard-core working breeders don't care so much about breed purity, did the cross to get the traits, faked papers to get the cash.

or a dog escaped it's kennel and cross was unplanned but breeder went with anyway.

I don't know why.

Cracked me up at some of your examples - LOL

 

I'm glad you enjoyed it K9gsdlvr!  I knew I was seriously overloading reasonable post length, but I also wanted to explain as much as possible. I'm glad someone doesn't find the TL:DR too odious. 

 

So, my point is that maybe just with some time gowing up mentally, he'll catch on.

Not that this really helps you, but thought I'd share anyway

 

Actually it does help!  From what I know of Malinois they tend to mature mentally much more quickly than GSDs, but I also know that some working line GSDs are the opposite -- very slow to mature, so that the dog really only blossoms intellectually at three years of age.  While any dog can vary from its' breed standard of course, one of the tricky things about crosses is that they can exhibit characteristics from one parent breed or the other rather than a mix, or even things that are extreme or outside the normal range for both breeds.  Maybe my guy really does need more time to mature, and I've been expecting adult stabiity from an adolescent.  I've dealt with adolescent GSDs, I *know* what vapor brains they can be! I'll keep working with him and see what develops in another six or eight months.

 

Good luck with him . . . as overall he sounds nice!

 

Thanks.  He is actually very nice.  I'm conscious of my own perversity in wanting a more demanding (and therefore potentially troublesome) animal!

 

 Sometimes we expect that other breed to have similar ways of thinking, learning, etc

 

I haven't done more than work the occasional Malinois in their handlers' presence before getting this fellow, and I've been shocked at how different he is mentally from a GSD.  He also doesn't think much like the other herding dogs I've known -- he's much more like a primitive breed in his reliance on his nose, and the fact that he doesn't bark, and a few other traits. Who knows? Maybe the purported GSDXMalinois ancestry is a lie and there's some other breed in the woodpile, though you would never guess from his appearance.  He looks like a small blanket pattern black and tan GSD, just with the finer features and more square build and refined features of the Malinois.

 

GSD is/was more lucrative $ so saying it is a GSD earns more cash

 

I'll take your word on that vk4gsd because it's the opposite here.  Malinois are comparatively rare and therefore considerably more expensive.  Obvsioulsy someone had some shady motivations, which is deplorable, but at least it produced a good dog. :)

Thanks for taking the time to answer my post too, both of you.  Framing it like this has helped clarify some things for me. Firstly, my dog might still be maturing mentally, which would explain why he's not necessarily the brightest or most focused spark at the moment. Secondly, I might have been working at too high a level for him.  He did come to me started so I've been proceeding forward from what he already knew.  Maybe the solution is to go back to the beginning, and treat him like a completely green dog.  I'm going to try retraining basic behaviours from the ground up, and see if I can't get a firmer foundation before I ask him to do more advanced work.  Just because he acts like he knows it doesn't mean he necessarily does -- it might be an automatic response, rote, with no real deeper comprehension. I'm also going to focus on attention and settle/off switch exercises, to get him transitioning in and out of drive more smoothly... I hope!  It can't hurt, and it might correct things. 

 

I'm also open to any other suggestions people might have.  Being able to discuss this has been a real pleasure.  There's no club in my area, and my concept of training is very different from that of most people around me.  They tend to be amazed at what my dogs can do (walk nicely on leash! sit when asked!) and some have outright told me that they don't think it's reasonable to expect a mere dog to learn much. In those circumstances there's no point in trying to explain, so I just smile politely and extricate myself. 

 

Maybe the solution is to go back to the beginning, and treat him like a completely green dog.  I'm going to try retraining basic behaviours from the ground up, and see if I can't get a firmer foundation before I ask him to do more advanced work.  Just because he acts like he knows it doesn't mean he necessarily does -- it might be an automatic response, rote, with no real deeper comprehension. I'm also going to focus on attention and settle/off switch exercises, to get him transitioning in and out of drive more smoothly... I hope!  It can't hurt, and it might correct things. 

You have the answer right here.    Assuming he has any kind of foundation then trying to build on that is where you are going wrong, IMO.     Start at the beginning, teach each exercise as a new one, even use a different language for the commands.     Train the dog "out of drive", with a reward that is interesting but not too stimulating for the dog.     It may be that your voice approval is all that is required, but keep it low key at all times until the dog is solid in his understanding.     

I have trained both Belgians (Mal & Terv) and GSD's and cannot say that one breed is more "intelligent" than the other.    My Tervuren was the most intelligent of all my dogs and loved learning, only needing a couple of repetitions to figure out what I wanted.    My Mal was really fun to work, both figuring out things quickly and having the drive and nerve to do anything.    One of the GSD's that I have now is very highly prey driven and her drive gets in the way of learning so I have to work her with a non-prey reward when teaching.    My younger GSD is still mentally immature, yet has good prey that can be used to teach and train - he can still retain the ability to think when being trained with prey reward but I use lots of verbal praise/markers and keep the prey for bigger reward.   

What I'm trying to say is that you can't categorize a breed and have to take each individual dog in front of you into consideration.     You already know that,  and with a new approach to this dog you'll get the results that you want, I believe.     Sometimes taking a few steps back will help you get ahead in the long term.     Good luck.

Did you do bitework with the Tervueren Koots? It's not often you see them outside the obedience ring here, though there's no reason why they shouldn't be able to do other sports as well.

 

Re: training my Mal, I was wondering if perhaps there was a specific approach that was more common with the breed that I was missing. I prefer to go slow and easy myself, but I tried the much more intense, high pressure, high rate of reinforcement method out to see if it would be more successful -- without luck. It was worth trying!  I've also heard more than a few anecdotes from people who work with Mals that compared to GSDs the dogs don't think in the midst of working.  They perform -- often brilliantly -- but there's not the consideration that GSDs give to a task.  Some handlers seem to prefer one or the other.  I'm going to see if I can teach my guy to be as meticulous in his reasoning as my other dogs have been.  If it doesn't work out 100% it will still be worth the effort, and maybe I'll learn something along the way too. 

 

It was actually hugely helpful to frame the original post summarizing what I've seen and what I've done with the dog with the intention to explain it to others.  Prior to that I literally couldn't see the hole in my training and assumptions even though I had all of the individual pieces of the puzzle. Everyone's responses have also helped me gain insight and persepective. 

 

Sometimes taking a few steps back will help you get ahead in the long term.     Good luck.

 

I hope so, and thank you very much!  I'm actually going to back up right to the very beginning and write up a training plan to make certain I don't miss any of the basic elements. I know some people would find that excessive but for me it's useful to help keep track of progress.

This dog is a great challenge for you, and I feel from your posts that you have the ability and willingness to do what it takes to find the right approach.     I do find the Mals tend to try to "guess" what you want and will try all their tricks to see if that's what you are asking, rather than "thinking" about the command.     I feel this is because they load up in drive when tasked, and rather than working through the problem in a more methodical way as many GSD's do, they will try to jump at the answer - in other words they try to "do".     I hope that makes sense.     But, not all Mals are like this, as I have had a few Belgians who were more problem solvers and their drive did not get in the way of learning.      Their drive gets in the way of learning.   This is something that one of my current GSD's has a problem with if trained with prey reward, and something that could be applied to your dog.    Therefore, training with a lower-stimulus reward will help you with your dog.     It's hard to find the balance between getting the dog motivated to perform the task but not too motivated with dogs like yours.

My Terv was a pet dog, but we trained schutzhund as he was my buddy and just because I became involved in the sport I was not going to get a dog to replace him.     As my first dog in sport, he was good to learn with because he was weak - this made me a more resourceful and "imaginative" handler/trainer.     I had to really amp it up in obedience because he was not flashy at all, although he did all the exercises but needed more input from me to show well.     In bitework, he did what I asked because we made it "fun" and prey-oriented as he didn't have the nerve.     He was by no means "nervous" like so many show Belgians, but he was not strong/committed in bitework, although he would put on a show but if he was really pressed then he would probably fold.    If it wasn't for our score of 68 in tracking, we would have passed our Sch I title and he would have become one of the few Tervs in Canada that was schutzhund titled - but alas this was not the case.      I loved that dog, he was a great companion/fishing buddy, and would "bluff" most people if I needed to ask him - smart dog and fun to teach but not a type of dog that I would want now for sport.     That was sooooo many years ago, and I still miss him.

I think that you have pretty well figured out what will work with your Mal, and making a new training plan will help you to measure your success and review your progress.     Keeping the dog in low drive so he can learn is the key with this one, I believe.   

I saw one of this cross on my friends police force was one hell of a scary dog lol