Voices of reason needed, I'm having a mad 5 minutes

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Jinx94

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I must be living in cloud cuckoo land.. or covid is sending me crazy. Probably both.

I have had plans to get a dog for near enough the last year. Had intended on getting in touch with West Mids police about puppy fostering but then got offered my dream job which does allow dogs but may not be flexible enough for me to get to all of the required training sessions.

Then covid hit and I haven't been able to start new job just yet. So I've ended up with a lot of time on my hands, too much of which has been spent looking at dogs for sale. And stupidly, I've found one that I really like..

She's a saluki x malinois and the most beautiful little thing. Very young so will be A LOT of hard work, and potentially a nightmare at times (I have some sighthound experience and have researched malinois VERY thoroughly). Could also be very, very rewarding and a lot of fun.

I'm bonkers, I know I'm bonkers. The timing is so ridiculously wrong and I know that I shouldn't (and probably won't) go ahead with it.

But I really wish I could :(
 
I have lurcher, sighthound and many years of dog training experience, we own 10 working collies and 2 pets, there is no way I would consider either a saluki (far to aloof for me) or a malinois (very high drive and demanding) and a cross of the 2 could be a nightmare.
A chap who bred my first lurcher once said to me 'its a fast dog that potentially bites hard' about German Shepherd x sighthounds and the average German shepherds have nowhere near the same drive as a malinois.
 
Bloody hell what a mix!!!! Are you a total masochist ???

I suppose I am biased as they are absolutely the two breeds I wouldn’t touch with a barge pole, even after having sighthounds for 32 years now....

Salukis are sighthounds x 1000% and the same applies to Mals as a guarding breed, the only thing that blows my mind is that some idiot crossed them together ???

I would avoid at all costs, and get a nice dog to own ??
 
skinnydipper said:
Now common on guys, what on earth is wrong with a Saluki X?

My much loved and now deceased, Layla. Very affectionate, loved to be close and just look at that (deceptively) innocent face. I think I told you about the rugby club barbeque kebab theft :D
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We need to think cons, not pros! :p

But she's gorgeous.. an old friend had a stunning saluki x, I was rather fond of him though he was selectively deaf ?‍♀️
 
I would have the saluki half any day, they can be managed with a bit of care (well, I have three already!). The Malinois half would really worry me though. My agility trainer has a Mali, he is relentlessly trained several times a day, was competed regularly until lockdown and she has made him completely fixated on her. He does not know how to even breathe in a way she has not taught him basically. If that is what it takes to keep one satisfactorily, it would really be too much dedication for me.
 
Jinx94 said:
We need to think cons, not pros! :p

But she's gorgeous.. an old friend had a stunning saluki x, I was rather fond of him though he was selectively deaf ?‍♀️
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Cons:

Salukis:

Mad as a box of frogs
ZERO recall at any time
Very high prey drive
Limited brain capacity ?

Malinois:

VERY high prey drive
Extremely aggressive
Just generally nasty aggressive buggers, worse than my bitey unpredictable lurcher ?
Big

Does that help? ????
 
Honestly it's probably the most bananas cross I've ever heard of and that's saying something. Both breeds prone to being on the edge of nerve, which won't become apparent until she's mature.
As Twiggy said, GSD lurchers never really got popular for a reason. Fast, fugly and bitey.
Research is research. I pretty much lived with people who had working shepherds and Malis, it wasn't the same as having one of my own. It was a right shock, and everyone tells me how Mali like he is.
 
Ugh, that is a cross I wouldn't touch with 2 10 foot barge poles.
A friend at my obedience club always had poorly bred Dobermans and got sick of them dying young from health problems. She got a Saluki as the breed is supposed to be pretty healthy and long lived. Another trainer has the breed and has done a lot with hers, obedience, agility and tracking. First friend is not the trainer the other friend is and her frustration is building.
I have working lines GSDs and I would go stark raving mad with a Mali.
 
Absolutely not. Sounds like a completely bonkers cross.
I have a Saluki, I love him dearly but he is pretty well untrainable (By me, someone with more patience and commitment might improve him!) He is a hunter and nothing can stop him once he sees prey. His only saving grace is he is not brave and reluctant to go off without his pack. I think Saluki crossed with a brave, aggressive breed would be a nightmare and could get you into a lot of trouble.
Please don’t do it!
 
I've not read the comments but DO NOT DO IT! We have a gorgeous girl here who came via MrsM. Shes has some saluki, some GSD and some other sight hounds into the mix. We adore her. Shes obedient, polite and a lovely sunny natured girl. But shes a very diluted down mixture and she was still a bit of a handful when she was younger and in a home that wasn't quite right for her.

My oldest whippet is working bred and he was VERY difficult as a young dog. I cried everyday for the first 6 months as he was so bad and I didn't know what to do. I couldn't rehome him as no one wanted him, I couldn't bear to have him PTS to i had to carry on. It wasn't nice. And he's a whippet. Easy, placid, lazy dogs.

A straight saluki/mal cross will be an utter disaster.I suspect they are bred as working dogs and the mal has been put into them to make them tougher, stronger, give them much more stamina. They will be a fast, bright killing machine with endless drive. Perfect for hunting, an utter nightmare in a pet home!
 
I’ve been thinking about this cross and why on Earth anyone in their right mind would want to do it - I can only conclude that it is to catch and kill deer, I genuinely cannot think of any other reason you would want/need a dog of this cross in the UK? Unless I’m being limited and people can think of loads of other reasons of course!!!

The idea is still filling me with horror this morning as well OP ??
 
What a bizarre mix.

I must say, the ever increasing popularity of the Mali makes me nervous. I always thought they were like GSDs but on acid. They are quite complicated dogs and require a lot of training and very firm boundaries, which the average owner can attempt but is unlikely to succeed with. My dog trainer has a couple, and they are beautiful dogs but you can really see the work he has had to put in.

I don't know much about Salukis, other than they are disobedient and fast ?

If it's this one, you can relax. It says she is pending collection ?
https://www.gumtree.com/p/dogs/-pending-collection-saluki-x-puppy-sad-but-essential-sale/1373290483
 
Leo Walker said:
A straight saluki/mal cross will be an utter disaster.I suspect they are bred as working dogs and the mal has been put into them to make them tougher, stronger, give them much more stamina. They will be a fast, bright killing machine with endless drive. Perfect for hunting, an utter nightmare in a pet home!
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This.

ETA. You will have realised that my fingers weren't working in tandem with my brain yesterday and I meant to type "come on" not "common" :rolleyes:
 
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Levrier said:
I’ve been thinking about this cross and why on Earth anyone in their right mind would want to do it - I can only conclude that it is to catch and kill deer, I genuinely cannot think of any other reason you would want/need a dog of this cross in the UK? Unless I’m being limited and people can think of loads of other reasons of course!!!

The idea is still filling me with horror this morning as well OP ??
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Totally this. We get a lot of deer killed by dogs here (found 7 carcasses in a far ditch in the spring) and I imagine that was exactly what this cross was designed to do . All credit they will probably be very good at it.
And when you go back to work and can’t train it?

ETA I see you’ve sobered up ???
 
A quick google confirms that Mali x salukis, greyhounds, lurchers etc are rather popular with hunting people. There's a forum where everyone seems to call each other "lad" with multiple posts about them. That's a more appropriate setting; I can see them being useful hunting (not my thing at all). As a pet it's a definite no.
 
Just to quickly clarify, not for a second did I think she'd be appropriate as something to cuddle and fuss and treat as just a pet ?

I like training, I love hard work and when I eventually get a dog it will not be something cute and fuzzy that needs minimal exercise :p ...it probably won't be a completely bonkers mix either!!
 
If you want a non bonkers breed, but like to do the training side of things and have something to cuddle. My Beagle would be perfect! have a look at the Beagle Welfare website, lots of lovely dogs looking for a home. Not everyone's first choice of breed though so you will get very mixed opinions. But they do like a lot of exercise so depends on what you mean by minimal exercise.
 
Jinx94 said:
Just to quickly clarify, not for a second did I think she'd be appropriate as something to cuddle and fuss and treat as just a pet ?

I like training, I love hard work and when I eventually get a dog it will not be something cute and fuzzy that needs minimal exercise :p ...it probably won't be a completely bonkers mix either!!
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I'm sorry but if you want a dog to train, your best bet would be to get something actually trainable?
Why would you want to make your life more difficult?
That combination is not likely to be from the best example of either breed, is it? In terms of health, traibability, titles etc.
It will probably have been bred to hunt foxes or rabbits, not prance around doing fancy heelwork or walk between your legs like a pretend tactical dog (wouldn't they trip?!)
No one I know with a good Mali has oops litters. There's a reason for that.
And in case I haven't said it before, you can't train over genetics.

The drives that oppose and complement each others in that mix are the worst of both. It is a dog who will want to run very fast in the opposite direction from you and bite things.
And you cannot train over genetics. Please believe me on that one.

I have known people who get unusual breeds/types and show up all biz to training, or the people with dogs that aren't really up to it or had a bad start in life but get put through the motions to 'achieve something' because the owner wants to 'prove everyone wrong' or 'show it can be done'.

They rarely make it and IMO it's selfish and unfair. They're doing it for themselves, to prove something to other people, they're not doing it for the dog.
If you want to do something, pick a horse for the course. If Fresians were going Foxhunter or a Shetlands doing PSG, regularly, then people would do that, but they don't.
Plus you're cutting yourself out of a lot of competitive avenues with an unpapered crossbreed.

I like training and hard work too and I still spent nearly two years getting a well bred dog to do a basic entry level qualification. It's hard. I wouldn't want to make it harder.

And just one last thing.
YOU CAN'T TRAIN OVER GENETICS.
 
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