Belgian Malinois behavior - Page 1

Hi I have a 4 year old female malinois and I rescued her from a farm. She has never been socialized with other dogs and when I try to bring her around my girlfriends dogs she growls and lunges at them. She's such a sweet dog so I don't understand why she does it. We tried taking them on a walk together and it still happened. Please help me if you have any answers! Me and my gf are moving in together in a month and really need them to get a long, I'd hate to have to get rid of her :(

Not unusal bahavior for a mal, you can't fix temperamant, even if you can put a bandaid on poor raising. Mals are not known to be super dog friendly. Don't expect lab behavior. Best of luck but have a plan B in case things don't turn out right.

Fry

That is the way the dog will be for the rest of its life. Animal aggression is managed, not "cured", I know, I have a very animal aggressive male at the moment. Do NOT make the mistake to think that the dog will change or become nice with other dogs, I have owned Malinois for 36 years, some were animal aggressive and some not, but, farm or no farm, temperament is created when sperm hits the egg, either you accept this dog as is or you make other arrangements for it, good luck!

I agree you can't change temperament, but while the malinois I've had aren't strange-dog friendly (not really agressive either, they just don't want to interact with them), they are pack-dog friendly. They love to play with other dogs in the household, and are very socially appropriate. There is a difference between how you handle dog-dog interactions with dogs you couldn't care less about, and dog-dog interactions with pack-mates or dogs they will see and interact with often.

A big caveat though, malinois play like little wolves. Lots of biting, chasing, standing on hind legs, teeth clacking, playing tug with anything they find, and very high energy. Many other dog breeds will see this as threatening and either become overwhelmed and scared or become defensive/aggressive. Other shepherds, like GSD, or herding breeds like a border collie might do OK with this play behavior, but a sporting breed like a golden retriever or pointer might never like it. So, it may be the dogs are not real compatible and the best you can hope for is to get the malinois to respect the other dogs space and basically avoid interaction.

Malinois can also be protective-defensive of their space, their person, and their home. I'd say all three traits are fairly common. There are ways to work with this and malinois can be great companion dogs, but it would take a novel to go into details. Basically, yes maybe your malinois' temperament isn't stellar but dog-dog reactivity is really quite common even in some of the high level working malinois. It can be worked on, but doubtful you'll ever have a dog-park social butterfly. Most malinois owners I know, myself included, expect our dogs to ignore other dogs in the environment. Some call it aloof.

There is lots of information on introducing a new dog to a household. I'd google that first and try those strategies before giving up. Malinois may be a bit special, but they are still dogs.