Hi! I here to know about mal and gsd mix Questions

Hi,
I am from India. I have two gsds. I came to this forum with hope to get some insight on how a gsd and malinois cross bred dog would be. From my initial research its seems a popular mix

They are very much pack animals. A German Shepherd Dog x Belgian Malinois is known as a Malinois X. While they aren't extremely popular, I've seen severe, including a multi-generational cross. They can be trained to walk off leash. The obedience in them comes from the Malinois. They need to be fed a high quality diet. My friend has a littler of 8 puppies when she bred her Belgian Malinois to a German Shepherd Dog. Pups got along great with their Golden Retriever and cat, but they are full of energy and make great guard dogs. They are very good with verbal commands, need something to chew on, otherwise they will shred everything within reach, must be walked on a leash until properly trained, otherwise there is no catching them.

More importantly is why you need to know what such a cross would be like?

The mixing of German Shepherds, Malinois, and Dutch shepherds is used by working line breeders primarily in Holland. Many are used by KNPV, an organisation that certifies dogs for police, military and other government services.

They are looking for the GSD to bring stability and better detection skills and mali for drive and agility, aim being ( the ultimate all round working dog.) The ones bred for KNPV are NOT for your average owner.

I get worried about people deliberately crossing the big working breeds for one trait and another, to achieve dogs ideal for 'protection work', when no thought is being given to those pups from more or less every litter that don't make the grade and will be sold on to novices who have every chance of ending up with a 'dangerous dog' on their hands. At least if you stick to one Breed you have some chance of predicting what you might get.

Sadly they are now being sold as a designer breed ‘Shepinois’ in UK and other countries.

Good question. I own and train gsds. I have two WGSL gsds. I do basic obedience and prey work and also go to show occassionally. I am looking for dog that has the obedience and alertness of gsd and but more hardness. I may have the opportunity to adopt a mix (father mal and mother WGSL gsd) . So i want to know whether he would get along with my gsds

Why do you want a 'harder' dog?
As far as the temperament of Malinois, it all depends on who you get the dog from and what the parents are like and what lines they are bred from.
Certain lines of Mals can be nervy, so there is no guarantee you will get a ‘harder dog’

By harder I don't mean sharp indiscriminately aggressive. I mean a dog that is independent minded, watchful to strangers, good at bite work, does not like being touched by strangers.

Yes a mal breeder also told me once that mals
can have lots of nerve issues.

Hence I wanted to know whether mal and gsd cross may be
better option than a pure mal, as a watchdog and
companion

A lot of people go for crossbreeds for working, health and temperament purposes.

Yes. But i have doubts regarding some of the cross breeds. Eg. why would one cross a Rott (mastiff type dog) with a lab (a retriever) is above me? Similarly crossing a mastiff with a terrier breed seems scary idea.
My thinking is that if one is to go for cross breeds then the purpose of the breeds should be in same direction. Ed. you may think of a cross between two retriever breeds.
Next would be the dody types and the health issues within each breed.
Eg. with a mal and gsd cross, both are shepherds although their drives and the way two breeds work are different.

In the gsd breed, especially in the show line, we are seeing high frequency of dogs that are long in the body, loose hocks, extreme in the rear. These issues seem to be less in mal.

So that's the way i look at crosses,

To give it a fancy name and get lots of money.

A crossbred (or crossbreed) dog is what you get when you breed one purebred dog to another purebred dog of a different breed. Some people call them hybrid dogs, but that's wrong. But dog breeds are NOT different species. Some people call crossbred dogs designer dogs. But whether a cross has been given a name or not doesn't matter. Purebred A + Purebred B = crossbred puppies. But when a purebred dog with a "deformity" is bred to a purebred dog without that deformity, the crossbred puppies tend to have an intermediate look. Crossbreeding tends to produce a middle-of-the-road temperament that often fits better into the average household than the more "extreme" temperaments of many purebred dogs. Unfortunately those traits can be, well, a bit of a nuisance when you just want a family pet. But if you cross a breed with a certain "working behavior" with a breed that doesn't have it, the chances are good that at least some of the puppies won't have it or will have it in a watered-down form that's easier to live with. All dogs have defective genes. A purebred puppy has a higher risk of inheriting two copies, since his parents belong to the same breed and share so many of the same genes, including the same defective ones. But parents of different breeds (assuming those breeds are not similar to each other) tend to have different defective genes. Not only that, but this greater variety of genes that a crossbred puppy inherits tends to result in a stronger immune system and better physical and mental health.

the term purebred is actually a misnomer. Except for a few molossor type ancient breeds most
of the modern-day breeds are designer produced by combining two or more breeds and at some stage standardized by close breeding. Eg. bullmastiff, great dane, dobermann etc. The only thing I emphasise while getting a dog is its purpose in my household. Dogs are functional animals. Therefore I feel they should not be bred or owned just because of looks or some trait which is not connected to its work or health.

Pure breeds have been developed for different purposes, and their temperaments match those purposes, It would be difficult to predict the exact type of personality/temperament a cross breed might produce.

There are many congenital health issues in lots of breeds, these conditions are still likely to show up in crossbred pup if both parents are carriers of one or more of the same genetic problems.
Quote Not only that, but this greater variety of genes that a crossbred puppy inherits tends to result in a stronger immune system and better physical and mental health.)
Can you provide link.

To illustrate GsdSlave's point further if you crossbreed a gsd with a rott, both are prone to hip dysplasia and hence cross bred puppies also can be prone to the same problem

It has got to be much easier to minimise the risk inherited problems by using health screened pedigree stock, rather than having to gamble with the random distribution of genes dealt by mother nature. I am quite proud of the fact that my current breed, Beagles, have been so keen to adopt DNA testing for, currently, four conditions, MLS, NCCD, Factor VII and IGS, - and to make all of the results publicly available.
Without some system of registration and record keeping, the owners of random crosses have no way of identifying whether their pets are from lines affected by inherited conditions, - or even whether the parents themselves were related. Fashionable crosses such as Cockerpoo's which are bought within a particular geographical area might well be likely to share some degree of relationship. This is likely to be compounded in future generations, based on the fact that convenience seems to be an important element in the average pet owners choice of a sire.
I am not speaking of outcrossing with a working purpose in mind. My first Field bred Golden Retriever had Labrador blood - deliberately introduced to improve speed in the field, and the Field Spaniel would have died out in the 1950's if there hadn't been a backcross to the Sussex. Over the years there must have been many similar examples, some better documented than others, but usually with a particular aim in mind. To my mind, the random crossing of breeds that is so fashionable these days just seems to be a waste of all those generations of breeding to type, in order to produce a mongrel.

To emphasise the importance of health testing and knowledge of the pedigree, here is another example Golden retrievers in American have high risk of cancer and Labs are prone to obesity. If you mate two dogs where one comes from a line of high risk of cancer and the other prone to obesity, and hope the pups will have none, is wishful thinking