15 Essential Training Commands for Your Belgian Malinois

Are you just welcoming your Belgian Malinois home and want to lay the foundation for a solid partnership well into the future?

You need to know the basic and advanced Belgian Malinois training commands that will teach your dog their place in the structure of your home. The good news is that you can easily implement some of these commands without professional help. However, we recommend that you learn from the best, Dr. Ian Dunbar’s SIRIUS Dog Trainer Academy, who created the first off leash puppy socialization and training classes.

The basic Belgian Malinois training commands include sit, stay, come, down, leave it, heel, name recognition, and off. These are essential for the safety of your canine. After these have been mastered, you can teach commands like place, find it, speak (and quiet), drop it, watch, stand, and wait.

Here are some of the commands that you should strive to teach to your Belgian Malinois as early as possible.

Basic Belgian Malinois Training Commands

When it comes to training your dog, they should have a few basic commands under their belt as soon as possible. Most of these are easy to pinpoint and revolve around the safety of your dog and their ability to comply with what you want them to do at home and out in the community.

Here are a few commands for Belgian Malinois dogs that you should work on as soon as possible:

Sit: This is the first command you should teach because it helps you to gain control over your dog in any situation. If they’re sitting, they can’t be jumping or engaged in rough play with other dogs.

Stay: After they learn to sit, a Belgian Malinois should learn how to control their impulses and to stay in one spot even if you walk away from them.

Come: This is a basic command that can pull your dog away from dangerous situations and back to your side.

Down: Teaching your dog to lie down allows you to build upon it with more advanced commands like “go to bed.”

Leave it: Your dog is likely to sniff out tasty morsels while walking, but you may not want them to eat everything they find. Leave it teaches your dog to ignore their impulse to eat what is in front of them.

Heel: The Belgian Malinois is a big dog to pull on the leash. Teaching them to heel at an early age allows you to walk them more easily, even in distracted conditions.

Name recognition: You should teach your dog to respond to their name so that they never get confused when you call for them.

Off: You also need to teach your dog when to stop jumping or to get down from the couch. The “off” command is a great way to set boundaries and teach your dog more appropriate behavior.

Advanced Training Commands

Once your dog masters some of the basic commands for Belgian Malinois, it is time to take their training to a new level. You may benefit from professional training once your pup masters those basic commands.

Here are some advanced Belgian Malinois commands that you may want to consider teaching:

Go to Bed (Place): This is a great way to teach your dog to control their impulses and to remain in the place you designate for them, especially when you have guests over. They can relax and your guests will not have to worry about jumping dogs or dogs in their personal space.

Find it: Your dog has a keen sense of smell and is great for search and rescue work. Lean into that raw talent by teaching them to find specific items.

Speak/Quiet: One of the downsides to this breed is that they tend to be very vocal. You can counteract this by teaching them to speak on cue. In a similar vein, you can also teach them when to be quiet.

Drop it: If your dog gets hold of something they should not have, teaching them to surrender it to you is essential.

Watch: This shifts your dog’s attention from whatever they happen to be looking at back to you as the owner. It ensures that they will make eye contact with you.

Stand: A Belgian Malinois has a coat that frequently needs to be brushed or groomed. Teach your dog to stand in place so that you can more easily take care of these activities.

Wait: This is great for dogs who rush through doorways. Teach them to sit and then give them the cue to wait as well as a cue for when it is time to go.

What You Need to Know About the Belgian Malinois

Adding a Belgian Malinois to the family means that you are getting a loyal companion for life. Before deciding to add one of these four-legged friends to the mix, you should understand what the breed is known for and why training is essential to keeping your dog happy.

First and foremost, the Belgian Malinois is a working dog who forms strong relational bonds with its handler. There is a reason that this breed is favored for lots of service work including police work, search and rescue, and more. They have a high drive to perform for their handlers and tons of energy to spare.

Exercise is crucial to keeping your Belgian Malinois happy and fit. This includes not just physical work but also mental work. Training them properly can be a great way to engage their brains and can lead to a decrease in problem behaviors that take place when your canine companion starts to get bored and is left to their own devices.

Importance of Training

Training is particularly important for the Belgian Malinois because of their size, energy, and overall intelligence. These dogs tend to be a bit bigger than the average dog, and they are natural herding breeds.

That means that if they are not taught what to do with their excess energy, they are likely to channel it into negative behaviors like chasing, nipping, or generally being destructive.

Their energy levels can also be impacted by good training. It gives them an outlet for their energy that is approved by their handlers and engages their brains at the same time. An engaged dog is often the happiest dog. Engagement allows them to relax in their downtime and to simply enjoy your company.

When to Start Training Your Belgian Malinois

The best time to start training your Belgian Malinois is the day that you bring it home from the breeder. Eight weeks old is the ideal time to start establishing yourself as the leader in the super important relationship between you and your new four-legged friend.

This lays the groundwork for your dog to be well-behaved from the very beginning before they reach their full size.

Many owners find that they can eliminate some of the problematic behaviors that these dogs are prone to develop if they can get to work on them as early as possible. For example, you may be able to nip herding behaviors before they even start by redirecting your dog to more appropriate actions and by teaching the word “no.”

Belgian Malinois Training Techniques

Once you have your list of training commands that you want your canine companion to learn, you have to decide on what method you will use to teach them. You can use positive reinforcement and clicker training to great effect, but you absolutely must be consistent in the technique chosen.

Because these dogs are highly intelligent, you need to be firm and consistent with them at all times or they will quickly figure out how to circumnavigate your requests to get their own way.

Most dogs benefit from a method known as positive reinforcement. A good example of this is simply giving your dog a treat every time they perform the given command. Find what motivates your dog (some prefer play while others may want a tasty snack). Then, give it to them every time they perform a command.

This usually leads to an extremely motivated pup who wants to spend time with you and is eager to figure out what you want them to do.

Clicker training builds off positive reinforcement. In the exact moment that your dog performs the action, mark it with a clicker and provide them with a treat. If you do not have an actual clicker (these cost just a few dollars), you can also mark behavior with a word like “yes.”

The clicker notes when they perform the task that you want and gives you a little bit of leeway to provide them with the treat from your training pouch.

Common Challenges in Training

While these dogs are highly intelligent, it is also likely that you will encounter some problematic behaviors at some point during your training sessions. One of the most significant training issues is that these dogs notice absolutely everything, making them highly distractible.

Counteract this tendency by making your early training sessions in an environment with minimal distractions. You can start to generalize commands to other settings as you progress and develop rapport with your dog.

They are more likely to be successful in high-distraction environments if they reliably perform in low-distraction environments at home such as in a bedroom.

Negative reinforcement such as yelling or hitting is also a surefire way to frustrate your dog. Most Belgian Malinois dogs do their best when they feel like you have something to offer them and are committed to developing a true partnership during your training sessions.

They learn quickly, so teach them that behaving is the ticket to great rewards.

Professional Training

Because these dogs are highly intelligent and have extremely high energy levels, they may benefit from professional training or obedience classes. These formats give them the structure needed for them to learn and give you the tools necessary to guide them in their development.

Beyond equipping you as the owner, professional training gives you personalized advice to set your dog up for success. Dog trainers are knowledgeable about how to set boundaries for your dog in addition to teaching you the basic tenets of positive reinforcement and clicker training.

Professional training also allows you to have a framework for your dog’s basic development. You can work through the commands that all Belgian Malinois dogs should know with a clear timeline that is tailored to your dog’s progress.

Socialization and Behavior Training for your Belgian Malinois

While teaching your dog to respond to your commands is ultra-important, it is not the only thing you should be working on with your Belgian Malinois. These dogs also need to be socialized early and often to prevent problematic behaviors from rearing their heads.

While this applies to letting them socialize with other dogs their age, it also means exposing them to new and novel stimuli. Some of the things that you might want to expose a young puppy to include the vacuum, hats, canes, and anything else that could potentially frighten them in day-to-day life.

Most people find that puppies are quick to catch on to new experiences, and this is crucial to start as soon as you bring them home from the breeder. The early weeks of life are a critical period for socialization.

Final Thoughts

Your dog deserves to be safe and happy, and training is a huge part of that endeavor. A Belgian Malinois is an extremely intelligent breed, so take advantage of that and start training sessions as early as possible. With firmness and consistency, you can have a well-behaved dog in any and all situations.

Are Belgian Malinois easy to train?

These dogs can be easy to train because they are highly intelligent. Still, you will need to be firm and consistent when issuing commands and implementing your training.

What age is too late to train a Belgian Malinois?

Dogs are never too old to learn a new trick or command. It is ideal to start as early as eight weeks, but you can do it at any age. It may take more time to train an older dog.