Malinois- size

[Psyfalcon]

How big to these things get? I saw a young one, smaller than Ruby at the dog park (brindle actually, so it would be a Dutch Shepherd or mix I guess)

Some sites list 40-60 for females and then 60-80 for males.

The males can be twice the size of the female and there is no size overlap? I know size is valued for Police or military dogs, but 80 seems big.

[release the hounds]

They vary a lot. I"ve seen a lot that were 40lbs and a lot that were 80 or so, and everything in between.

[stardogs]

My pup's dam is around 55lbs and the sire is around 70lbs. Aeri has a half sibling (male) who is 75+lbs. I'm thinking she will hit 50lbs. Lots of variety!

[Aleron]

The size of all Belgians can vary quite a bit. Height wise males are ideally 24" - 26" at the shoulder and females are 22" to 24" but when taking into account dogs under and over ideal size, there can be a huge variance between the smallest females and the largest males. Weight wise, my black Belgians are all between 38-56lbs and vary in height from 21 1/2" to 24 1/4". Weight in any of the Belgian breeds could easily go from 35lbs for the smallest females to 80+lbs for the largest males.

All that said, if the dog you saw at the park was brindle it wasn't a Mal or at least not a purebred. There is a lot of mixing that goes on with some of the working lines, so it is possible the dog was sold as a Mal but had a different breeds or breeds in her pedigree.

[UniquityBelgians]

I agree, it varies so much from line to line, especially when we're talking malinois, where there are SO many different lines. I find alot of working people try to breed them larger than show people (alot of breeders throw some GSDs in the woodpile to accomplish this). Weight depends more on substance than height.

I have a 22.75 inch groen female who is 48 lb, and I have a 24 inch male who is 62 lb (I think he'll mature more between 65-68 lb). His sister is 23.25, expected to mature around 50lb. My dogs aren't tall, but they are substantial and therefore tend to weigh more than the dogs we see who are taller than them. There is another breeder I know personally whose males tend to range anywhere from 26.5-28.5 in, but they are considerably lighter than my dogs because they don't have the bone or chest that my dogs have.

On the other hand, I had a little 21 inch groen female who was never more than 17 or 18 lb at a good weight. She was very fine boned, and though she was only 1.5 inches shorter than my other female I had at the time, she seemed a great deal more petite. She was completely different lines.
My 22.75 inch female is heavier than a 24.5 inch male I had years ago.

So, it really depends on the lines. Females from one line can be alot heavier than males from another line. Some dogs may be very tall, but dogs 4 inches shorter might be heavier. Mals have such a wide gene pool that it varies considerably.

[jenv101]

It definitely varies. Riley is 76lbs and 28.5-29" tall at 15 months. He is a freak of nature, I definitely did not expect him to get that tall!!

[Paige]

They seem to vary a lot. Someone told me they are 100lb+ once and I actually snorted milk out my nose.

[AdrianneIsabel]

They vary yes, but they shouldn't get any bigger than 80 lbs and not any smaller than 45, as a rule.

Sloan is 45 lbs and Backup is 50 lbs, they're very small malinois actually. Ideally 60-70 lbs would be a nice weight for speed and man stopping power. Our two are SUPER fast which is awesome but they aren't nearly as good of man stoppers as Quarrel who is already 60 lbs and will probably top out around 65-70 but he's definitely a slower dog than our two. It's a give a take really.

The malinois we had before our two was 35 lbs and much to small but danged if she wasn't adorable.

Oh and Malinois do not carry a brindle gene from what I understand.

[Aleron]

Originally Posted by Paige

They seem to vary a lot. Someone told me they are 100lb+ once and I actually snorted milk out my nose.

Someone recently called an agility facility here and said he had a 120lb Belgian Shepherd. The owner of the place has a Mal and asked if it was a furry black dog. Guy said no. So she asked if he was brown and what sort of coat did it have. Guy said "yeah he's brown and has a short coat". So she told him to bring the dog out because she was intrigued by a 120lb Mal. Dog was an oversized GSD. And when she asked if the dog had papers and if so, what breed was on them. He said "the papers say German Shepherd but when they get to a certain size they're called Belgian Shepherds" LOL Have also had more than one person tell me that long haired German Shepherds are called Belgian Shepherds/Sheepdogs. Not sure where people get these ideas!

[Psyfalcon]

He said Belgian, but it was brindle, so Dutch shepherd probably got in there somewhere.

I really like the smaller end of the size scale. They could be the perfect hiking breed, if I could ever live with one the other 99.9% of the time. Mid sized agile, a bit of defensiveness would be fine, I really do not relish the though of coming back to someone breaking into the car at the trailhead.

I need to stop thinking about "Next Dog." At least until I stop changing climates every 5 years