The reason Mals are gaining popularity with the public is because of the type of breeders that Adrianne mentioned. If breeders were being more careful about their dogs, you wouldn't be seeing things like what has been posted about here. I'm afraid that gaining popularity in sports and work has not done them any favors unfortunately. Instead, it has attracted a lot of breeders who don't really know much about the breed or care to, they just want to sell working/sport/protection/police bred puppies to whoever wants to buy them. There certainly are some great Mal breeders out there, so I don't mean to sound as though there is not. However, there are also a lot of..."for profit" breeders of them too. And when breeding gets to be more business oriented, sometimes there isn't the focus on ethics and what is or isn't good for the breed or buyers as there should be.