She did not use the large  Kennel I had built for her or any of the other places I had prepared for her Just in case, but instead had dug a large crater at the end of the driveway in the open and had dropped ten pups into this crater which was now half full of water and half drowning pups.

I moved them all into the laundry on a heap of blankets and newspaper, dried the pups, Then prepared the bathroom for them. Eventually she had twelve pups in all.  I moved them to the bathroom and then noticed that she did not know what to do with the pups, like each time the pups wanted to eat she backed away from them. 

Each day after work when I got home another one or two pups was dead. She did not want to let me take the dead ones away and still did not let the others cuddle up to her. One morning when I checked them another pup was not moving. I raced to the Vet with it as she only now had four of the twelve surviving and I was determined no more would die. The vet said to put it down, but I said NO give it back. He said what are you going to do and I did not have a clue at that stage. I raced back home and rapped the pup in a towel, turned the heater on and rolled it over and over like a chicken in a stove and finally it came back to life. 

I then raced back to the vet and borrowed one of those electric mats I discovered  he had, Raced back home and set the mat up. All the pups cuddled on the mat. Sheba was a real useless mum. I phoned Julie for help as the pups were still weak because Sheba was not feeding them. Julie came over and took them all to her kennels. She and a friend took 24 hour shifts watching and teaching Sheba how to be a mum. After a week they were brought back and Sheba was finally doing the right thing in looking after her pups. At least we still had four of the little babies, all the others had died from phenomena after being wet and cold.

Her second litter went without a hitch I am pleased to say. At 3 in the morning I awoke to the sound of new born pups. Went to the bathroom where I had put her as I had worked out on the calendar it should be a Wednesday for pups being born so I had started to leave her in the bathroom from the Monday and she had them that Wednesday.

She had six little babies, was doing all that a mum should do so I went back to bed. All six grew up into huge beautiful Shepherds bigger even than Sheba and she was Huge, like far bigger than any male Shepherd.

The thing that upsets me is that out of all the pups I sold every person had them spade so the Sheba Line has come to an end. I should have ignored the rule that you can only have two dogs and should have kept one of the pups for myself. If I had my own farm I would have kept them all, but I guess it was not meant to be.