Alaskan Malamutes Questions

I have rats, rabbit, hens and hogs with my Mal she was brought up with small furries and loves them!

Many however are not so good.

i knew 2 mal x's, only one went for my male sibe, he was a dominant dog anyway and blaze was a confident pup - they met up every sunday for months then one day the mal x just went for blaze, he would also try to hump my male staffy x but he put him in his place, however i do know a few full mals - off another forum for huskies/mals ect and they are lovely dogs - one will actually put himself between to fighting dogs and his body language will automatically break the two dogs up - he doesnt have 2 fight with them, it really depends on the dog but not all mals have same sex issues

Not all the gang pictured are mine, a couple of them belong to my MIL.

My boys live in the house alongside the rest of the gang, cats and small furries. They never bother with the small furries unless they've thrown something tasty out of their cage and I think they just view the cats as small dogs.

It helps that the cats are completely fearless when it comes to dogs and wont tollerate any funny business from them.

They have recall and are allowed off in areas where I have a clear view. I do put them back on, or keep them on lead in high populated dog areas though.

They are welcome to meet other dogs once I know the dog is ok, but I wont risk them meeting unknown quantities off-lead incase anything kicks off. Knowing how easy it is for Mals to pick up bad habits, I won't put them in a position where they feel they have to defend themselves, that's my job.

They are not a breed for the faint hearted but with clear, consistent boundaries and finding what motivates them (usually food ) they can make fantastic companions.

They have breed traits like all dogs do. If you do decide to take on a Malamute please do be prepared for the 'bad bits' to make an appearance and think about how you would deal with them if they do. You might be lucky and have a clean sweep from puppy hood through to adult hood with no major problems. On the other hand, you could end up with a 'text book' adolescent Malamute pushing you to your limits.

Hoovers are a touchy subject in this house. I go through a Dyson every 18months!