It didn’t take long before the puppies were able to stand on their hind legs at the front of the whelping box, each desperate to be the one picked up and cuddled. As they got bigger Sasha turned to skin and bones, despite the extra food we were giving her. It was with relief that I started to supplement the puppies food as this gave Sasha some respite.

For me though it turned the experience into a nightmare. We had decided that I would do permanent night duty so that some-one was at home to do the 2 hourly feeds which changed to 4 hourly after a couple of weeks. Paul had his first job in years and we weren’t going to risk him having a day sick to give me a little uninterrupted sleep. So I would work all night and come home and try to sleep between the feeds. The puppies had reached a stage where they would noisily let you know exactly what they wanted. I became totally exhausted.

It also fell to me to do all the cleaning up of doggy done-its and the sodden paper where they widdled. I was a nurse so my stomach could tolerate these things. We also had to have vet checks for hips and vaccinations. It was not a profitable venture by any stretch of the imagination. The curly-haired black and tan puppies were adorable however, and this made up for everything else.

At 7 weeks we started advertising them for sale. The owner’s of the puppies father had already chosen the female that they were going to take which left seven puppies for us to find homes for.

Finally we were down to two. This was a controllable number and I started to enjoy the puppy experience. When they too went to new homes I was really quite sad.

Not for too long though as anger replaced my sadness, the day after the last puppy went, when Paul told me he had thrown in his job and was no longer working.