7 Surprising Little-Known Truths About Pet Alaskan Malamutes That Will Make You Laugh Out Loud

From their weird snack obsessions to secret work drive that never fully went away, these fluffy giants have more personality quirks than most first-time owners ever expect

Most casual pet lovers picture Alaskan Malamutes as nothing more than extra large, fluffy teddy bears that shed a lot and look a little silly wearing tiny winter coats. The truth is almost nothing like this common stereotype, starting with their core historical purpose that most pop culture references get completely wrong. Unlike their smaller Husky cousins that were bred for long distance speed sled runs, Malamutes were originally raised by the native Inuit community of Alaska to haul hundreds of pounds of heavy supplies across frozen ice, over short to medium distances at a steady slow pace. This ancient breeding purpose left behind very specific traits that still show up in every modern domestic Malamute today, even if they have never seen a sled or a thick layer of sea ice in their entire lives. Many new owners are shocked the first time their 80-pound Malamute decides to drag their entire 30-kilogram picnic cooler across the park without breaking a sweat, just to show off that old inherited strength they did not know they had. A lot of these dogs also unexpectedly love cold weather chores, from carrying their own doggy backpack on walks to helping pull small boxes of groceries from the car straight to the front porch, and they get genuinely offended if their owner tries to take the heavy item away from them.

The second little known quirk that surprises almost every new Malamute owner is that these dogs almost never bark the way regular pet dogs do. They do not use sharp, short “woof” sounds to alert their owners to strangers at the door, or to beg for snacks when they spot someone opening the treat cabinet. Instead, they communicate using a wide range of low, rumbling, melodic howls and grunts that sound more like a very chatty person trying to tell you a long, detailed story. Many long term Malamute owners report that their dogs will respond out loud to every single sentence a human says to them, creating what looks and sounds exactly like a two way conversation. There are hundreds of shared anecdotes online of Malamutes who have taught other pets in the house to stop making their normal noises: parrots that used to mimic phone ringtones now only make low rumbling Malamute-style grunts, and other small dogs in the same household start making the same long, warbling howls every time someone comes home from work.

While almost everyone has heard the joke that Alaskan Malamutes are living fur factories that never stop shedding, very few people know the tiny, silly details of their fur management that make them far lower maintenance than most people assume. Their outer layer of coarse guard fur is completely water and mud resistant, which means that a Malamute that runs full tilt through a mud puddle on a rainy day will be almost completely dry and clean five minutes later once they give themselves a good full body shake. The mud crumbles right off their guard hairs without leaving a single stain, and most experienced owners do not even bother wiping their dog’s coat after a muddy walk, they just wait for the dog to shake the mess off all over the backyard grass. The soft inner undercoat is the part that sheds heavily twice a year, and so much of this light, fluffy fur comes loose that many Malamute owners collect it for months to spin into soft yarn, or even knit tiny little stuffed toy replicas of their own dog out of the shed fur. You can find hundreds of these tiny handmade fur Malamute toys on social media, made entirely from the loose fur that fell off a full sized pet.

Another extremely funny, widely unrecognized trait of pet Malamutes is their Oscar worthy acting skills when it comes to pretending to be starving. A lot of new owners have read online that these dogs are massive working breeds that need huge amounts of food every single day, so they are shocked when their full grown 85 pound Malamute only eats the same total volume of food as a 35 pound Australian Shepherd. The dramatic, sad, wide eyed “I have not eaten in three weeks and I will collapse any second” face Malamutes pull when they see a human holding a snack is not a sign of actual hunger, it is a carefully honed evolutionary trick they developed thousands of years ago to convince their human handlers to share extra pieces of seal and whale meat back in the arctic. Modern vets who specialize in large northern breed dogs estimate that close to 65 percent of all pet Malamutes in suburban households are slightly overweight, almost entirely because their owners cannot resist that perfectly executed sad puppy face and keep slipping them extra treats between regular meals.

At the end of the day, Malamutes are not the high energy, difficult to handle giant pets that a lot of online pet advice sites make them out to be. They do need at least an hour of steady outdoor walking every single day to burn off their excess energy, but once they get that daily exercise they turn into the laziest, softest living couch cushion a person could ever ask for. They love to lay their entire heavy head on top of their owner’s lap while they watch television, and they will intentionally crawl up to rest their warm, furry belly against their owner’s bare feet on cold winter nights, acting as a completely free, self moving space heater that never needs to be plugged in. Almost every long term Malamute owner will tell you that once you share your home with one of these gentle, silly, chatty fluffy giants, you will never want to go back to owning a smaller regular dog ever again.