Definitely would cross with a Mal before a Sheppard. I have some full blooded mals and two that are Malinois Greyhound and Pit cross. They are bad news. I mainly use them with thermal and night vision as sight dogs but only cause they're so gritty. They will take a track and hunt like nobody's business to though. We're friends on FB so you may have seen some videos of them from time to time.
I have a line of bird dog crosses I hunt right now but been kicking the idea of working in some Malinois blood into my daylight dogs. I really would like to find the right Plott dog to cross to a malinois.
I always wondered if my mals would bay or catch. Yours are catch??? I know for sure they would hunt and had the endurance and speed to do so, but was to worried to try them in the woods in fear they would catch out a mile away. I didnt want to risk it as the 2 i had were such good guard dogs it wasnt worth it to experiment 4 me, and not like i didnt have strike a catch dogs that worked just fine anyhow...
My Mal crosses are 1/2 Mal 5/16 Greyhound 3/16 Pit. Very fast and athletic and catch as hard as any bulldog I've seen. My full blooded Mal yard dog will bay a bad hog but if/when he catches he don't let go. He runs loose and keeps strange people off the property.
Funny story... One day I was at home sick and on the couch in my boxers. I heard him outside raising straight hell. It went on for about 10 minutes and I got up to see what he was up to and he had about a 350 pound black guy up on the hood of his car bayed up! I hollered at him and he sat down and never took his eyes off of him. The guy said sir can you get your dog, i'm such and such with the Jehovahs Witnesses and wanted to talk. Told him I was sick and not interested at the time. Never seen him again lol
