Meet Bruce! Questions

Hi everyone! My kids and I adopted Bruce from a rescue in January and absolutely love him! We really just want to confirm if he is indeed a Belgian or if he is a German Sheppard. We thought we would start here and post a few pics to see what people think....thanks for your help!

I’m not sure I’ve seen this breed with that white marking on their chest.

You could do a dna test. All else is speculation

Some things about mixed breeds:

1. Outside of "designer dogs", most mixes have at least three breeds in them. Often more.

2. Not every breed in the mix will present itself physically. So while the dog may not look at all like a poodle, he may have poodle in his makeup. Same for temperament and behavior. The smaller the amount of a breed, the less likely you'll "see" it in the dog.

3. When breeds mix, they do weird things. The physical traits from each breed may combine to create something different. A large dog may have small dog dna - he just got his size from a large breed in the mix, or visa versa. A dog may get her body shape from a lab and her legs from a bassett. Or a dog may get her ears from a beagle and her muzzle shape from a pug and her tail from an akita.

With all that, the most accurate way of determining the breeds is to do a dna test. Embark and Wisdom Panel are good. For dogs here in North America, a less expensive test is dnamydog. It tests for AKC registered breeds only and doesn't test for breeds that are rare in North America. They don't do health testing, so the cost is lower. They also don't test for "pit bull" as it is not really a breed in itself. They don't test for APBT because it's not AKC registered. They do test for staffordshire, etc. that have been used to create "pit bulls". I've used them on my past three dogs and have been very satisfied with the results.

With all that, I don't necessarily see malinois in him. He may have mastiff, boxer, etc in him. Likely there is some shepherd and/or lab (those and poodle and chihuahua are the most common breeds seen in mixed dogs).

GSD cross. With what is anyone's guess.
You could dna test for the fun of it - I'm sure that is I would want to - the results are often surprising though.

Writing as my alter ego.
I should have added, Bruce is a beautiful dog and I'm glad that you are so well matched with him. Malinois tend to be at the hyper end of the temperament scale, and can need a lot of management, so the more level GSD nature should make your boy easier to live with.

If I was to guess (and I'm hopeless at guessing breeds), I'd say GSD x Malinois