Sam Adams has been involved in Belgian Shepherds since the winter of 2013, when she imported a working line Tervuren from France as a successor to her mixed breed agility dog. That terv, Most, lit Sam’s passion for both Belgian shepherds and bitesports through her adventures with him in both IGP and Mondioring. Some issues prevented Most from ever trailing in bite sports, and when he was retired young, Sam added a wonderful malinois to the family.

AKC Ch. ptd D’Wildcat 16130 IGP3 MR1 FH1 TD “Wild”, our foundation male, had a spectacular career in multiple sports, and is still competing in AKC tracking and obedience at 11 years old. Wild is the only dog in US history to place on the podium at both Mondioring nationals and IGP nationals. He made the FMBB world team at his first ever national championship, and the unfortunate timing of COVID means he never got to see the world stage. Wild is also the sire of two US Mondioring Nationals podium dogs in just his first litter.

Sam’s motivation to breed malinois is not to have dogs to make money off of, or to make flashy Instagram reels of. She loves this breed, and she loves competing, and she wants to make sure that the type of dog she enjoys living with and competing with is around for years to come. She prefers a thicker nerved, social dog, with high levels of fight drive and intensity toward the decoy. Naturally full gripping dogs, with a pushing style, and the stamina to work well through an entire Ringsport program without diminishing. Dogs who love to work, live to work, and who have a very strong desire to engage with the handler. Her dogs all live in the house, with cats and boarding dogs, and dog neutrality to dog sociability is something we strive for.

Sam’s overall feelings on breeding also include being responsible for her puppies for the remainder of their lives, even puppies from outside breedings using her stud males. Our babies are always welcome back, no matter what, and we have a contract structure that both ensures we get lots and lots of health testing data, and keeps her babies safe for life.

Our puppies are raised in a clean and safe environment with a combination of early socialization and exposure, temperament testing, drive testing, and early bite-work building/testing. We use aspects of both Avidog and Puppy Culture, but do not fully utilize either program as some aspects of them are antithetical to a working bite-work dog. We start potty training and crate training early, as well as conditioning puppies to Sherpa bags for those who plan to fly home with their babies.