On March 25, 2022, a female Malinois and her six puppies were found abandoned, and taken to the La Porte, IN animal shelter.  Malinois Rescue stepped in and found fosters for all six puppies, and a foster for the momma dog.  All the puppies adjusted well to their wonderful foster homes (all had family dogs who helped the pups adjust).  The female adult went to a foster home and had some problems adjusting.  She had lost her home, lost her puppies, and then landed in a wonderful foster home; with patience and love, training and medical care, she soon thrived and was adopted by the foster family.
 

All pups made it to wonderful adoptive homes, and this is the story of two of the puppies, Xena and Hawkeye.
 

The foster mom was working one of her dogs in SARs (Search and Rescue) and decided to imprint Xena on air scenting  to see how she would do .  The first training, Xena used her sight to find the person, but the second time, she used her nose.  She soon excelled at air scenting, and at 8 months of age, earned her Level 1 in SARs, will soon be tested at the Level 2, and is already working on Level 3 problems,  and once she passes Level 3, she’ll be considered “deployable”, all before her first  birthday!!! She is high drive, loves her work, and recently imprinted on Human Remains Detection (HRD)!   Her human mom says when the working collar with the bells on it comes out, Xena can hardly wait to get started.  
 

Hawkeye was raised in a house with three other Malinois, plus Cardigan Corgis. He was a tiny little boy, and soon learned from the others how to play tug, become potty and crate trained.  The foster home was pet sitting for the local Vet’s Malinois, and a photo was taken of the adult playing with the little puppy, both tug and chase.  After seeing the photo and video, the Vet and her husband asked if they could visit the puppy, and soon became the new adoptive home.  Hawkeye frequently visits the Vet’s practice so has learned to interact with other dogs, and loves people.  Hawkeye has been introduced to sheep  herding  this past summer and he looks to have good herding instinct.  He’ll be continuing his training, and his future looks very bright!
 

ABMR did a fantastic job  in working with the shelter to gain ownership of them,  in coordinating foster homes for all six puppies plus Momma, the transport  team worked their magic and transport  came together so quickly (everyone loves to transport puppies!) , and all are heal thy and have been adopted… that is a real success story