I always wanted to experience a litter of puppies and thought no better way to experience the miracle of little Belgian Malinois with Raven and Cadman.
Raven had her first litter of maligators Easter Sunday 2021, what an incredible experience to watch the natural instincts of Raven kick in. I remember waking up in the middle of the night when she had her first and then running into my boy’s bedroom to get them awake in the middle of the night to be able to experience first hand the miracle of the birth of Raven’s puppies.
Raven had 4 puppies, 3 girls, 1 boy and had them in a plastic (empty) pool with a bunch of towels. Leading up to her delivery, we looked at a ton of welping boxes. I’m definitely glad we didn’t spend the money on a welping box because the pool worked just fine.
The first 2 weeks Raven did not leave their side, she laid in the make shift welping box/pool and nursed them as they needed to be nursed and was an exceptional mother. Week 2 their eyes opened, which was amazing and they begin trying to stand on their wobbly legs. Week 4 they begin operation escape the baby pool and succeeded so we now had 4 puppies running about the house.
We moved the pups to our downstairs bathroom that is constructed of all tile. It was around week 5/6 I realized we were not cut out for a littler of maligator puppies and I learned first hand how they got their nickname ‘maligator’! The morning greetings and leg gnawing were cute for the first week, and then it was a mad dash to the back door with a bowl of food to get them out to the yard and distracted with the food.
Something I’ve always been intrigued by since getting into the k9 world has been the psychology of k9’s and being with new born puppies every single day, watching Raven and then Raven with her puppies and Cadman with Raven & the puppies was everything I hoped it would be. I also don’t believe we will be doing it again, due to the lack of space to manage and what it takes to have maligator puppies.
I am happy to say all puppies found homes that were hand selected by me. It was important that I found homes for them that I new would have handlers that understood the amount of work a Belgian Malinois is and will always be. I also love the idea that I can continue to watch them grow and progress throughout their life.