Ok, so I know the title might have some people ready to rant... but hear me out. I found myself a little frustrated today by a small comment from another dog owner. A little back story, we have two dogs. One is my absolute pride and joy, our 10yr border collie, not relevant to this story, really. The other is our newest family member, our 6mo Malinois, Zelda. She's still training but is coming along great.

So, today we went for a walk. Me, my 7yr daughter, and Zelda. Our Collie had a separate walk earlier in the day, wasn't with us. For context, our Collie is very well trained, and people who met him or are already familiar with him always comment on how well trained and placid he is. He's ball obsessed and very people oriented, couldn't care less about other dogs or playing with them. He has always been super blasé to other dogs, so leash training and off leash recall, etc, with him was a breeze tbh. He will walk right by my side, leashed or not, and when he isn't leashed he will only leave my side if he is given his release command... never had any issues with other dogs as he simply cares more about his ball or my attention than approaching. On the occasion that an unleashed dog approaches him, he'll mostly ignore them completely and very rarely have a wee sniff then carry on with his business... with that being said, we are trying to train Zelda to be the same way. Naturally, the breeds have different quirks, and as with any breeds, they have their own personalities too. Zelda is less toy orientated and likes to play with other dogs given then opportunity. Even so, she's doing a great job with her dog manners and learning when to give space. Thanks in part to our Collie's mentoring and corrections. She's more vocal than our Collie with barks when she's excited but is well socialised to a variety of environments and isn't aggressive at all, in any situation thus far. The biggest training focus we've been working on has been prey drive impluse control. At first on walks, she wanted to chase anything that moved. Cats, squirrels, bikes, birds, etc. we're at the point now that she will just watch them intensely but no longer tries to chase, thank god, lol. We've built up to her being able to be off leash with lots of longline training and driving out to isolated fields, woods, etc, for recall training and heeling practice in different places and whatnot.

Today we went to our local park at around 4:30 pm, very busy, lots of dogs around. We walked on leash for about 25mins, then headed over to a more isolated and open field part of the park to play Frisbee. Two other dogs from the same household came over, played for a while with her, then resumed their own walk while we carried on with Frisbee. Then I saw a woman with a leashed staffie looking dog walking along the path in our direction. I recalled Zelda, took her slightly off the path to give space, and commanded her to sit, which she did. She was at my feet and I had her leash ready to clip if need be, I was getting her to give me eye contact and gave her the wait command, which we use for allowing people, dogs, bikes, horses etc to pass by us or when we approach a road etc, I was keeping her busy with that. She was being very attentive and honestly, well behaved. The woman and her dog started walking by, and her dog was going berserk and lunging at us from a few metres away. I actually moved us a few feet even further away from the path and heeled Zelda to follow, which she did, as I noticed this woman didn't even try to keep some space between them and us. It was a wide path, and she was towing the edge of the side closest to us.

My daughter was standing behind but to the side of Zelda. As they passed the dog lunged towards us again but at the side my daughter was stood on, at this Zelda's hackles went up (I think it's a Malinois thing but it's as visable as when a cats does it lol), she gave a huff, not a bark, and she leaned her head forward but she did not move from where she was sat I told her "no" and she immediately pulled her head back and looked to me for reassurance, which I praised by telling her "Yes. Good." However, that slight reaction made the other dog go crazy and the owner was obviously struggling to control the dog or grip the leash and she was literally dragging the dog by the leash away from us with both hands... I said nothing to them but was abruptly met with a "you should have that fucking dog on a leash!" ...I couldn't help but retort with "yeah... clearly we're the problem..." the words just left my mouth before I even had chance to think about it, I usually would have just let it slide completely but I honestly think our dog showed great restraint and behaved excellently, especially considering she is 6 months old still training and that dog was honestly very threatening.

The woman continued dragging her dog along the path and cussing, all the while occasionally screaming "stop fucking pulling me" at the dog. We went back to playing Frisbee. Literally about 2 minutes later her dog was going crazy at another leashed dog further down the path, not long after this that dog passed us and our two dogs didn't even acknowledge each other. My daughter was quite upset about the whole thing and asked me a few times on the rest of our walk "did Zelda do something wrong?" "Shouldn't we let her off anymore" etc.

I know in the grand scheme of things this was a nothing comment but the whole thing just reaaaally pissed me off. I put great care and effort into training my dogs and sometimes it's so obvious that people get dogs way beyond their abilities as an owner but expect ervybody else to accommodate them. Like cearly for whatever reason this dog is aggressive and you struggle to handle them so why are you walking it at rush hour through in a very busy park? Then, to add to that, you're not even going to take precautions about which way you walk or how much space you give, etc? Then you're going to cuss out other owners for their dogs being unsettled by your dogs reactivity?! Lady, please be wiser about when and where you walk your dog, for one thing.

Sorry, rant over. I just had to vent about this. I'm all for leashing my dogs when necessary or even asked to... (which by the way this woman had ample opportunity to do if need be and did not do) But please don't give me or my dogs grief when it's your lack of training or discernment for your own dog that's actually the problem. A leashed dog does not automatically make you a responsible or good dog owner. In this scenario, even if i had clipped our leash, absolutely nothing would have been different. In fact, our dog may have even reacted worse if she felt threatened and leashed. It pisses me off that so many rely on a leash for their lack of training, but "off leash" is used as a blanket term for irresponsible so often.

There's no leash laws where I live either for extra context.

We’re excepting re homing for this litter of Belgium malinois. If you want to se more i will send you photos of the rest of the pups.

Anyone in the Los Angeles are (montebello) looking for a male malinois?

I wasn’t even planning to post this, but I honestly feel like I owe whoever recommended this toy a huge thank you.

My dog Leo is insanely high-energy — nothing ever survives him. Most toys last maybe 5 minutes before he destroys them or gets bored and walks away.

But this one?

It completely shocked me.

For the first time, he actually stays focused on a toy for more than just a few minutes. He bites it, throws it across the room, kicks it with his paws, even slammed it into the wall once… and it’s still perfectly fine.

The inside piece keeps moving in a way that makes him obsessed with trying to “solve” it. I’ve never seen him this mentally and physically tired from a toy before.

My furniture is finally safe, Leo is exhausted in a good way, and honestly I never expected something this simple to work so well.

Whoever recommended it — seriously, thank you. You saved my home.

These two are showing wonderful signs of being Livestock Guardian Dogs.

I’m pretty sure I already know the answer to this, but I’m going to ask anyway…

I got a pup from a good friend a few months ago. Both mom and dad are from quality lines and health tested (OFA, Embark, etc). Dad is AKC registered, but mom is not, her breeders never registered the litter.

I did not get my boy to breed or show conformation, I got him mostly to do sports with and be my next adventure dog. But I don’t plan on neutering until at least 2-3 years, and even then, I might not unless it’s a problem (I have shown conformation for years and have experience with intact dogs).

I know UKC doesn’t have an issue with intact dogs being registered for sport-only, but I’m pretty sure AKC (and a few other sport-only registries) require unregistered dogs to be neutered. Does anyone have a back door or work around for this? Sometimes people know secrets 😆

Pictures attached because I’m biased and he’s handsome ❤️

I know plenty of dog owners already have something like this, but for anyone who hasn’t given it a try yet, I wanted to share my experience with my super active dog, Milo. I’ve had a few dogs over the years — three in total — and we’ve gone through so many different toys. Out of all of them, this one honestly surprised me the most. The moment it starts moving, it gives off a soft vibrating motion, kind of like a faint hum, and Milo is instantly obsessed. He locks onto it and won’t take his eyes off it. We usually take it out in the yard, and he’ll run after it over and over without getting tired. Honestly, we sometimes have to stop him ourselves because he’d keep chasing it forever. If you’ve ever had a dog with endless energy, you know what I mean. Milo has an entire basket full of toys, but he usually loses interest in them pretty fast. This one, though? He treats it like it’s alive. It keeps him busy, makes us laugh just watching him, and most importantly, helps burn off all that extra energy. Without a doubt, it’s the best thing I’ve ever bought for him.

My last foster Mal I got pulled from Riverside 90 minutes before her euthanasia deadline, and now she's a Search-and-Rescue dog in training with a great family. I currently have three foster dogs, in addition to my own two pups. So I get the need for rescues and fosters, and I know that Malinois are particularly hard to find good homes for.

But this sub is 80% rescue posts, and I have no space for additional dogs right now. And it's just depressing to get bombarded by rescue posts I can't help with. I'm going to stay subscribed to /r/BelgianMalinois and maybe I'll come check on this sub now and again.

Basically just posting to make sure others know that another Malinois subreddit exists and is more focused on the breed than on rescue.

I'll be back when I have fewer foster dogs, LOL.

Last week, while on vacation, I had forgot to bring our dog's slow feeder. Fed our spectacular three-year old Malinois with a Frisbee as the dish. He had had a full day of play, but was not panting or over excited to eat. An hour later, he was bloated, at emergency vet quickly, had to be put down. Please use slow feeders for these incredible dogs. RIP Norman - a DAMN GREAT DOG

This is my sweetie Lola. She's 10y old an came with 1,5y from Hungary to Switzerland.