10/10/2026
LET’S ADDRESS “GAY TAIL” IN THE BELGIAN MALINOIS.
(THIS IS CANINE TERMINOLOGY NOT HOMOSEXUAL TERMINOLOGY)
I am so tired of seeing people tell Malinois owners that because their dog has a gay tail, they were “ripped off,” bought a poorly bred dog, or somehow got taken advantage of by their breeder.
That is simply not true.
Gay tail is a tail-carriage trait. It can and DOES occur in very well-bred Belgian Malinois, including dogs from established European working pedigrees. You can find varying degrees of high tail carriage across nearly every line if you spend enough time around the breed.
Does that mean it is ideal according to the breed standard? No.
Does it mean the entire dog is poorly bred? Also no.
There is an enormous difference between identifying a conformation fault and declaring an entire dog genetically inferior because of one physical characteristic.
And frankly, owning a Malinois does not automatically make someone an expert on the Belgian Shepherd breed.
I’ve been involved with these dogs for 25 years. I owned Malinois before they became the trendy breed everyone suddenly had an opinion about. I’ve shown them. I’ve worked them. I work them daily. I’ve bred them, evaluated them, trained them and spent time around thousands of Belgian Shepherd Dogs over the years.
There is a massive difference between that depth of exposure and someone whose entire experience with the breed consists of owning a handful of dogs.
I’ve seen gay tail in mediocre dogs.
I’ve also seen it in exceptionally well-bred, extremely capable working dogs.
I’ve seen it across bloodlines, countries and generations.
A Malinois isn’t suddenly poorly bred because its tail comes up.
If I were evaluating breeding stock, would I take tail carriage into consideration? Of course. We should be evaluating the entire dog—structure, health, temperament, nerve, drives, working ability, pedigree and what that individual is likely to contribute to the next generation.
But I’m not going to look at an otherwise exceptional dog and pretend its entire pedigree, genetics and working ability disappear because its tail is higher than I would prefer.
And please stop telling people they were “ripped off” by their breeder solely because their Malinois developed gay tail.
That’s not education.
That’s taking one piece of breed knowledge and pretending it makes you an expert.
Evaluate the whole dog. Know the breed. Know the bloodlines. And understand the difference between a fault and a fundamentally poor dog, and before commenting on a puppy make sure that dog didn’t come from Aoife Haus Police K9 LLC bc Cora doesn’t play especially when my lines run circles around yours. K thanks 👌🏻
“Gay tail” is an old canine terminology. Gay historically meant jaunty, lively or high spirited, so the term refers to a tail carried excessively high or curved over the back. It has absolutely nothing to do with the modern meaning of the word gay.
Reading comprehension is a dying skill apparently, idk how any one of you has made the post about sexual orientation or that I care about a tail. If you could actually ready to understand you’d save yourself from the embarrassment. A tail does not affect the teeth or workability of the dog. An uneducated person seen one of my puppies with a gay tail and said it was mixed which led to education. Now stop being dense we have the world at our fingertips with a few clicks you can save yourself from looking uneducated in the comments.
