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Definitely use vLLM

Awesome!

You have to be like really prepared. For real. I’m a new Mal owner. She is 6 months old. We’ve had her for 3 or so months. Having her is not like having a dog; it’s like having a hyper athletic teenage daughter that’s being scouted by thirty universities for tennis or basketball AND ten universities for academics. She never stops. Your responsibility never stops.

You have to learn a TON of new skills. How to train her. How to feed her. What everything means. You have to watch for bloat, for hips, for eyes, etc. - as a puppy to catch anything early AND as an adult to give her a healthy life. You have to learn how to use a lead/leash, what collars help and when to use them. You have to learn associations and markers. What toys are cool (Mals bite everything with zero chill - so some toys for like a Poodle become dangerous for a Mal) or not cool. What foods can they eat? What foods are valuable and what foods are meh?

Also, you have to genuinely understand that you don’t get to just “go do something” anymore. At least not for a while, and not for more than a few hours. We crate trained our puppy; she’s good in the crate. A little whining now and then, but she sleeps through the night with a few exceptions. We enforce naps twice a day after exercise (and a cool down before she goes in). Still, if we want to go play tennis - it’s a few hours tops, and during nap time.

If we want to watch a movie - it’s after her bedtime or expect to be harassed for 85% of the movie. If we want to have sex - yes, it’s like something we work around… you just aren’t getting a normal dog.

We have a schedule for her… she still wants to play fetch in the house when she’s bored. Her job is to hunt anything that moves anytime we’re on the long line and walking. Squirrels. Lizards. Birds. Fucking leaves and plastic bags. She eats anything, though we’re teaching her and she’s learning to leave things alone. We taught drop it, but that doesn’t apply to toys or sticks with her… only rocks, plastic bags or bottles, and other shit she finds along the walk.

We took it seriously… and it’s still SO MUCH more than we both anticipated. I also think that we’re lucky she’s smart, active, and engaged… otherwise it would be impossible.

Malinois are smart enough to sit patient and wait for their food twice a day… my puppy will sit and wait until she can’t stand if I don’t “free” her with the break command to eat… but she will also eat the insole of any sneaker left out… meaning she has a MASSIVE capacity for vocabulary but you’re responsible for making it work… and man, it’s an actual challenge.

Your puppy, after all of this shit, is still going to need some real world, scheduled and professionally taught hobby - bite work, scent work, agility training, parachuting… something.

You are assuming an incredibly real responsibility when you get a Mal; it is not at all what it’s like having a Lab or a Retriever. It is a hobby that’s demanding as fuck.

The cool thing is… if you manage to do all of this shit, or the variation of this shit that every Mal owner ostensibly has to do… you wind up with an awesome dog. It just takes a few years. My gf is a pediatric nurse in an extremely active workplace… and she says that our puppy is 10x more difficult and demanding than the worst patient she’s ever had.

You want a hobby? Have a baby. You want a snuggle buddy? Get a Lab. You want a new lifestyle - then you’re ready for the Mal.