Hi from NC

[Raine]

Hi, I'm Raine. I'm 40 and live in western North Carolina with my husband and our 12-year-old son.

I'm doing some research before getting my first Dutch Shepherd. I'm wanting another dog that I can be active with and get involved in either a dog sport (probably IGP and/or dock diving) or scent work, something to both give the dog a job and to get me off my butt and out of the house more, and hopefully get my son involved as well. A friend of mine has a Belgian Malinois and I've had fun doing some training with him (well fun until the bite sleeve came out, lol), but am leaning toward a Dutch Shepherd because I've heard they were a little less likely to be velcro dogs and would do better being at home for part of the day while I was at work or school.
Tbh, I'm still confused as to how much of a difference there is between them since I keep seeing mixed litters with both.

I currently have a 12-year old pit bull mix who can't be as active as he used to and I'm wanting a dog that will push me to do more physical activity and actually enjoy it. I had a German Shepard that died last winter - we raised him from a puppy and had done some agility and Schutzhund work with him before finding out he had hip dysplasia and being advised to take it easy. I will also be keeping my mom's chocolate lab pretty soon, for a few weeks to a couple months, and training it for her, because she is in her 70s and kind of frail and got this huge puppy and kept putting off training, so now she is afraid to even walk him - my goal is to train him then teach her how to keep it up when I visit for the holidays and bring him back.

I'm not in a huge rush to get the dog, because I want to get myself in better shape to be able to keep up with training it and get better fencing for my yard first. I literally went from "no way in heck am I ready for one of these dogs" to "well maybe" over the course of close to 2 years and spending some time with my friend's mal and a few "maybe" Mals and Dutchies at our local humane society, which apparently now labels every brindle dog as a possible Dutch Shepherd mix, and learning a lot more about training dogs in general.

[centrop67]

Welcome to the forum.

I do not believe that the DS is less velcro than a Mal. I could be wrong.

Have you considered fostering? It's a good opportunity to get yourself moving, and you just might fail- that is, you find the perfect dog for you.

Check MAD rescue to see what's out there.

[Raine]

I'm going by what a friend who has bred both in the past told me. Granted, that could be just with his dogs and more related to the specific dogs/bloodlines he's worked with. He did tell me that he did not think DS's were less drivey than Malinois, which is something I read somewhere else.
This is kind of why I'm checking out forums and taking my time - there seems to be a lot of contradictory information out there and I want to make sure if I get a dog I know what I'm looking for so it's a good fit and I'm prepared as possible.

I've done a few fosters, but mostly short-term. Since covid we've fostered cats far more than dogs, so not a great mix. But I've finally got the family on board with a new dog and have a fence crew scheduled to come out in early November so I'll have a better spot. Once my mom's dog goes back home, hopefully over Christmas, I may get back on the foster list. We don't see a lot of DS here but it seems like they're showing up at shelters more everywhere.

I've seen MAD rescue online but I was under the impression that they only adopted to families who had breed experience.