Malinois.UK

RESCUE AND REHOMING
Far too many Malinois end up in rescue today, due to the owners not having researched these dogs properly, and what owning one entails. This is the main aim with this website - to inform potential owners and hopefully prevent mistakes being made.

If you are considering giving a home to a rescue dog rather than buying a puppy, then well done -but please do think your decision over carefully. A rescue dog often comes with "baggage" which frequently is unknown, i.e. it will have behaviour issues/past bad experiences. Thus a rescue Malinois will need an experienced owner willing to put in whatever work it takes to help the dog get over whatever issues it may have. Be extra careful if you have children, cats or other small pets, and very small dogs, as you may not know how safe an adult Malinois with unknown background is with these. It is also worth noting that pretty much all Malinois in rescue are the working type.

Visit the pages for the Belgian Shepherd rescues linked to below -and take a look at some of the adverts (also below) that shows how common it is for people to give up their Malinois due to "not coping". Many of these are puppies. Breed related rescues will be run by very experienced people. Sadly, general rescues/shelters often do not know enough about Belgian Shepherds, and rehome them to unsuitable homes, and sometimes they do not even know what breed it is they have in front of them. A notable rescue that is very responsible when it comes to rehoming Malinois and other energetic working type dogs is Battersea Dogs & Cats Home, as they will only rehome these dogs to carefully vetted special homes, sometimes to the police for instance, or to dog sports competitors. Indeed they now have a "Working Dog Manager" on their team responsible for this. If you have a Malinois you find yourself wanting to give up, please do contact  first of all the dog's breeder, secondly breed rescue, and Battersea as a good alternative. Unless you are able to carefully vet the new homes yourself your dog may end up worse off. Never advertise any animal as "free to a good home" as anything could happen to it -there are people who are on the lookout for free dogs for dog fighting, for instance.  www.battersea.org.uk/


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New Dawn Malinois Rehoming was founded in 2017 and is
now the major Malinois rescue in the UK. Their website can be found at
https://www.newdawnmalinoisrescue.co.uk/
They also have a Facebook group
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1435206653244785/

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Facebook's page for Belgian Shepherd Rescue UK,
run by the Belgian Shepherd Dog Association of the GB.
www.facebook.com/BelgianShepherdRescueUk/

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BSDA's rescue page on their website:
www.bsdaofgb.co.uk/belgian-shepherd-rescue

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Northern Belgian Shepherd Dog Club's rescue page:
www.nbsdc.co.uk/rescue.htm



Examples of when things go wrong

The following adverts are just a few examples of how many young Malinois, even puppies, end up in rescue due to the owner not coping with them, or not having done their research before buying. None of the adverts are current, they are just used as examples. Note that a responsible breeder would a) not have sold the pup to start with if they did not feel sure the buyer could cope, and b) if the buyer did end up with problems, the responsible breeder would take the pup back -not let it end up in rescue or being advertised for sale.