Any Malinois owners out there?

[Maligator Love]

I have a 3 year old mali. She was imported along with her sister from the Netherlands for police work but, they ended up only needed her sister so she was put on the discount rack. She has been the best dog ever. She is insanely smart, I have been told she has the IQ of a 2 - 3 year old child. She herds my chickens around the yard and chases the fox. I trained her in obedience, Frisbee, agility, herding (just enough for my needs), funny tricks (close the door, get me a soda, get my slippers, where are my keys, bang bang, and what ever I can think of). She also loves most people (as long as you do not touch me), she greats strangers and is ok with new people entering the home. She has never attempted to bite anyone and but she is very dominate and is not good with other dogs.


When she was a puppy she had issues with chickens and small animals but once she was mostly trained at 1 year old, she knew she could not be to rough with them. She ran up on a little mixed hen and ran/ rolled over her and killed her by accident, but then she hid in the corner for an hour because she knew she was bad.

I adopted a 4 year old pit bull to keep the mali occupied and she turned out the be the best broody momma ever. She lets the chicks curl up under her belly and she never moves. So you never know with adopted dogs. If you have the time and knowledge to train an adopted mali then you could try it. However I am more comfortable with getting puppy's because I want my dogs trained my way from the get go.

I almost adopted a 1 year old mali but she was crazier than crazy and even with spending every minute training and working with her, it never got better. I had to give her back to the woman but I felt so bad because her son left her with the dog.




Viva

 

[malndobe]

I have a number of Malinois and their behavior around the poultry depends on the individual dog, and also how much work I've put into it. Basically the ones that I've worked with to be good around the poultry are fine, the ones I haven't, aren't. And would kill and eat them in an instant if given the chance.

I'm coming late into this post, so I don't know if you already found a pup or not, but you mentioned wanting to do conformation. Between wanting something that will be easy around the chickens, and wanting to do conformation, I would not focus on the protection/sport breeders for my pup, but look into people doing conformation, herding, agility, etc. There isn't as big of a divide between the "working" and "show" breeders in Malinois as there is in other breeds, but their is some divide. May as well go with a breeder who is focusing on what you want the dog for.

I herd with my Malinois Nexxus, who is not only from solid working lines but also does protection sports herself, and is probably the highest drive dog at my house. But she's also the only 1 I trust 100% around my poultry, even unsupervised. The worst thing she might do is decide to take them for a walk somewhere but for the most part she ignores them unless she's working them. And they realize this and ignore her, she can walk right through a flock of chickens without them even moving out of the way. The ducks not so much, they see her coming and head out, but she also works them on a regular basis so they are used to moving off when she approaches. And they are flightier than my chickens or turkeys.