i figured i live in a cabin in the forest with ticks and underbrush, and it snows in the winter and it’s hot in the summer, so i was in the market for a fairly all-arounder sort of breed as far as coat. i wanted something that didn’t leave her totally vulnerable to hypothermia, but wasn’t going to need to be shaved in summer or make tick checks hell (it’s easier to get a good visual on the skin with a short coat to spot the lil buggers), or constantly need to be de-mudded, de-shrubberied, de-burred, de-snowballed… hence the malinois! (we are twenty miles from the nearest small town, so we also don’t have regular access to a groomer/grooming facility.)
again, if you’re able to meet their needs they check a lot of boxes: low grooming maintenance, low incidence of genetic defects, personable, very smart, very trainable, all-around fairly weatherproof, medium sized (she’s a leggy and lean 50lbs, small enough i can carry her off a trail if i have to), very sporty and athletic, confident, and basically a go-anywhere do-anything dog. i still maintain you would see a lot more around if the price of entry weren’t so high 
the really towering challenge for most folks here, even more than the exercise needs, is that mals bond to their person like glue, and simply don’t thrive if they don’t get full-time face-time all the time, and most people have family lives or work lives or hobbies or whatever that makes that really hard. (as a childless WFH air force widow living alone way out in the hills and on my way to grad school, i am the rare person without those kinds of “distractions” - that’s the secret behind how she gets such a monopoly on me 
…)
you genuinely do need to raise them as if they were a human toddler requiring a daily 5k run. they’re definitely a people dog not a dog dog, so i am sorta jealous that chacha and shiro keep each other amused! i have always thought that would be a highlight of having more than one. on the other hand, mara’s peopley tendencies lend themselves to her main job, so it works out. all about that fit yeah?!
i do use no pulling, no, leave it, all the basics, but often when we get into a more advanced behavior, i do have a little fun with the wording. it’s something i’m likely to repeat often, so i select a word or phrase that pops to mind naturally and has a sort of conversational vibe. this is just me being a little anthropomorphic but i like to believe those more conversational interactions improve our relationship. also i think it’s cute and so do other people when you say things like “no shopping” or “gimme smile”, “ok go say hi”, “wanna check your peemail?”, etc.
i’ve taught her these sorts of things so now, when she’s on a heel for walks (she is almost always off leash, so this is pure voice control), she’ll kind of nudge me in the back of my knee when something catches her interest and i can ask “wanna go check your peemail?” and let her go check out whatever it is. i retain the ability to say no not right now, but most of the time it’s a yes. it’s sort of like a small child tugging your hand and asking to go look at a shop window. this lets us communicate so that i remain in charge and know where she’s going and what she’s doing, but she has room to express her wants and interests too. since she can cue me when she wants to scope something out, she gets real input on the team itinerary. sometimes we can honor those requests and sometimes we can’t (whatever it was on the ground there let’s move, oncoming traffic dummy!), but ultimately she gets the sense that she’s a participant and it makes things really nice for everyone. i struggled for a while to figure out how to balance between being a “walk dictator”, wherein i rule with iron fist and call every shot, with the opposite end of the spectrum of letting her run roughshod all over me on walks (which confounds our overall authority dynamic). i found that this strategy of letting her ask to check things out gave us the best of both worlds, (it also endruns bolting after objects of interest if the default is to ask first!) and turned walks into an activity that’s cooperative with active engagement for both of us.
see? don’t apologize for writing a lot! i could talk about dogs forever.
derp.
she doesn’t have full color vision obviously, but she can recognize patterns or approximate matches pretty well and she starts spinning in circles she’s so stoked. so if anyone needs me i’ll be over here doing the homer simpson into the bushes while people talk about millenials who treat their dogs like children 
!
I think Mara may be a bit less time to groom, but since she is clearly outdoors a lot, still needs bathing and brushing, despite her shorter coat!!
i love learning more about them in any form.
I like the various cues you have come up with. I usually just use “No!” or “No pulling!”, neither are very imaginative!
