What is an Alaskan Malamute?
The Alaskan Malamute is a working dog, situated in the Working group in both Canada and the United States of America, for conformation showing purposes. To some people, they are a 'pet' destined to live out their days going for walks, car rides, and enjoying evenings in the living room. To other individuals, they are a working companion, active team members to excursions, events and activities involving snow, weight, trails and maybe camping. For other breed owners, they are one half of the team in sporting ventures, obedience, rally, agility, to name a few.
And, unfortunately, for a small minority of Alaskan Malamute owners, they are money machines, there to produce puppies and only puppies. Dogs owned by breeders of this sort, do not participate in conformation, working or any other activity with their dogs, outside of 'breeding' purely for the purpose of making money from the puppies produced.
The Alaskan Malamute is a smart dog, good at most anything they want to do, whether they were bred to do it or not. The key to understanding the breed is in understanding 'want' - since wanting to run away, wanting to fight, wanting to not obey a command, wanting to mark territory, wanting to eat furniture, other pets and other articles are all very strong 'wants' of the breed. If you want an Alaskan Malamute, you want to be able to work with these problems, correct them, and want to have a well-behaved pet, that may require training throughout its life.
The Alaskan Malamute can have an acute sense of pack hierarchy. In other words, it can, and will, fight for what it believes in. It will fight for as high a place, in the pack, as it can achieve. It will shed great wads and balls of fur all over your furniture, clothing, meals, and house. It will require minor weekly grooming, moderate monthly grooming and a major overhaul a few times a year - to keep it in 'pet quality' condition. Show quality grooming is a daily and weekly time commitment of hours and hours.
Your Alaskan Malamute might acquire genetic diseases, sometimes in spite of the greatest of care of breeders to avoid such diseases, and sometimes due to the wanton disregard of genetic testing and diseases of other breeders. These diseases, might have a financial cost of a few hundred dollars a year, to many thousands of dollars a year, to ultimately death of your companion. Please use this Web site to become aware of what issues impact the Alaskan Malamute, what breeders can do to inhibit their spread or development, and what you can do as a pet purchaser or owner, to ensure you are getting the healthiest specimen available you can find.
In the end, the Alaskan Malamute is a great friend, with many surprises!