I keep hearing of this and alot of people saying it is most common in the Mal's versus some of the other working breeds.

How do you avoid this and what causes this? Is it just the dogs drives are so high that he wants to try to adjust the pack order?

Next, if you dog does go at his chance of "upgrading status" what do you do to break him down? In other words, do whatever it takes but at the least cost of injuries to yourself and the dog. Basically, the lightest you can possibly be until he stops (but still at the same time being realistic, a dog is attacking you).

Best to avoid it at all costs so is it inevitable in some dogs or is there a way around it.

Thx...

Hi Aaron

Malinois are reactive and very 'misunderstood' by many. Most handlers that get bit unfortunately due to handler error: in most cases the inability to forsee or understand the type of dog their dealing with. Many times it has NOTHNG to do with establishing rank or pack order.

Again I'm speaking of norms and not the exceptions. If one understands the breed and 'what makes them tick'...they'll have minimal or no issues. There are always ways around it. When I started with the breed many years ago...my first sent me to the ER...my fault. The more I understood the breed; that situation never happened again. Since then I've had several HA'd Malis that have put numerous people into ER for treatment; yet those same dogs I've trained for years without even a 'nip', and they'd 'turn themselves inside out for me'.

Understanding them is 90% of your success. Again I'm speaking of high drive working Mals...and not the 'rank' ones or exceptions to the rule.

Brigita,

Can you please share with us how you were sent to the ER by your first mal and what lesson(s) you learned from it?

Maybe some general do's and don't when working with reactive dogs??

Thanks so much in advance.

Don't tease him/her with ball like you would your, for example, showline gsd ...

They really don't need that much prey drive promotion.
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Seriously, i would be very much interasted in do's and dont's as Chris said.

Sure Chris

In this situation it was a 3 year old very social FR III male which was imported from France. Incredible drives, super fast, and reactive (by that I mean very fast reflexes..which are positive when doing certain aspects of training; but if not careful...they can have negative consequences.).

I had him about 2 weeks...there was my first mistake...takes longer to establish a bond with this breed when dealing with adults.

I was training him and gave him a correction on a choke chain (heeling)...second mistake...having watched the dog previously; it was obvious the dog had HARD training....and with the minimal info I had on him...if he perceived a big correction was coming...he'd kick into 'survival mode'...

He came up the leash and didn't let go...took 2 people to get him off and then he acted like nothing happened and was 'waiting to resume training'. Another guy took him and did a short OB routine with him immediately afterwards and he did it beautifully and handled any correction very well and without any objection....

Turned out months later I found out the dog did NOT like women. Social to everyone but when it came to training/control work...he would only obey or submit to men...but this I didn't know...and at the age of 10 when he passed away...he still preferred men and would turn himself inside out for them. Needless to say as a 4 year old; he bacame 'my husband's dog'; and in every day life he was great with me and the kids--and after 'retirement' was our house dog...just not 'great' when it came to control type work or training. Yet he would allow me to clip his nails, give him baths, brush him, take him to the vets (again no issues there). He LOVED kids...but again preferred my son to the girls...This dog loved people and wasn't dog aggressive at all and he loved to play with anything and everybody...he wasn't possessive and he certainly wasn't dominant in any way. He preferred a 'peaceful' co-existence and never challenged nor questioned his 'place' in the pack.

Needless to say he was an interesting character and is missed very much.

Thanks for sharing. I'm glad everything turned out well.

From my experience, most handler aggression I see in training comes from unfair corrections on the part of the handler. I can count on three fingers (still got em too!) the times my Mal has become aggressive towards me and each was in response to what I will admit was an unfair corrections on my part. None of my dog’s handler directed aggression has ever involved any “rank” issue on his part. I also think there is a genetic factor in handler aggression as well. Trainers that know my dog’s Sire tell me that as my dog is maturing he is showing more and more similarity to his father who can be quite handler aggressive at times.

IMO Mals have the same amount of handler hardness as most other working dogs. They have a bad wrap about it, but I don't see it any more in Mals then you do in a good working GSD.

Be it rank, or a "correction" for what they deem "unfair" it does not seem to be just a Mal thing.

Many times people exaggerate the Mal "issue" as they do not like, know how to work or have not taken the time to understand the breed. It's much easier to blame the breed than alter a training method or blame oneself as a trainer.

Our State Police will not accept Mals into their program for this very reason. They say they are handler hard and "dangerous" to handlers. To their credit they have actually had one, yes just one Mal go through their program to base all this mis-information on. I once asked one of their trainers a few years ago how many GSDs have bitten handlers over the years and he couldn't even guess but it's been plenty. Strange, they have not stopped using GSDs......hhhmmmmm...interesting.

YEAH! Those dirty rotten ugly handler-eating pinheaded annoying little brown dogs. . .


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As a new trainer, could you give me an example of what a dog like this would deem an unfair correction from an experienced handler.