Snickers Died this Past Spring at the age of 9 1/2. He was an excellent guardian and he will be missed.

Snickers is out Belgian Malinois which, if you don't know, is a breed of herding dog and is a variety of Belgian Sheepdog. The other varieties are the Belgian Sheepdog, the Belgian Tervuern and the Belgian Malinois. The only difference in the three is the length of coat otherwise, they are identical. The Malinois is used, primarily for police work, bomb-sniffing and drug enforcement. They are an extremely high energy breed that must have room to exercise and are , not usually, good around groups of people. The also have a very high focus drive which is why they excel at police work. They can be trained to be excellent agility dogs as they are built for speed and endurance as are most herding breeds. Snickers is no exception. He is high strung and must always be doing something either in the yard of sticking close to whatever is going on in the house. It's unusual to be someplace on the property where Snickers isn't within eyeshot of you. He looks after everybody and everything around. There isn't a cat in the neighborhood that gets on this property without Snickers watching him out the window. Strangers coming to the door? Forget about it! He's on them like a hobo on a hotdog. The one piece of advice you need if you decide to have a Malinois for a pet is to get involved in obedience training right away. You need to be a responsible dog owner and have the ability to keep them under control. They take to this training very well due to their ability to focus and to please you so it's both an absolute necessity as well as a pleasure. That is why they are so prevalent in police work.

Snickers has two toys that, at least one of which, is next to him at all times. A purple stuffed dinosaur named Dino or a tennis ball. If you make eye contact with Snickers, you have to be prepared to have one of them brought to you for some play time--No Exceptions. Still want a Malinios for a pet? Be prepared to give them a lot of attention. Snickers is almost 10 years old now and he's only slowed down about a half a step.

Below is a link to an organization that is involved in the rescue/relocation os Belgian Malinois to new homes. As you would expect, there are a lot of people who find out that this breed isn't what they expected in a pet. As a result, there was a need for an organization to relocate animals to new homes.