All About Pets

Sheba’s Next Chapter

I always thought that Sheba was such a pretty dog, since she looked similar to a German Shepherd, but she was a nice small size of 35 lbs.  I had visions of puppies that looked like her to share with others, so I held off on having her spayed in hopes of finding a male that looked similar to her.  I knew it was a long shot, since she was a mutt, so I knew I would end up getting her spayed eventually.

The house that I shared with my boyfriend at the time (I’ll call him J from here) had a fenced yard, but it was wooden, so the gate had a little bit of spacing between the posts and Sheba managed to squeeze through one day and take off down the street.  J and I yelled for her to come back, but she was gone.  He got in the car and took off to look for her and found her around the block with a dog who apprarently had free roam of the neighborhood.  He pushed the dog away, then picked Sheba up, put her in the car and brought her home.  

As the week’s passed, Sheba’s belly started to sag (though she didn’t really look fat at that point), and I knew she was going to have puppies.  We hadn’t even thought of the possibility because we thought he had found her in time, but apparently not.  J had already been talking about getting a puppy, but I didn’t want another dog.  Sheba was my baby and that was all I needed.  I started asking around to see if anyone wanted a puppy, even though we had no idea how many puppies she would end up having.  My best friend and her husband were thinking about getting a dog, but they weren’t sure if they wanted a young puppy.  I knew that we would have the puppies for 8-10 weeks, so I was hoping to have good homes lined up before I got too attached.  Even though I didn’t want another dog, I knew that the puppies would be adorable, and I didn’t want to be tempted to keep them.

In preparation, we had lined a large box with blankets to make a comfortable place for her to give birth.  We tried to get her to go into it as much as possible to get her used to it, and she seemed to like sleeping in it.

On Memorial Day 1994, Sheba was lying on the floor, and I actually noticed her stomach start contracting.  We brought her to the box and she settled in.  I called the animal hospital (our regular vet was closed for the holiday) because I just wasn’t sure if we should bring her there to have the puppies.  They just said to leave it to her to know what to do and the puppies would probably be born about 20-30 minutes apart.  I sat by her, but I left her alone so she wouldn’t get nervous if I was too close.  I was so excited I called my best friend (still hoping they would want a puppy), but they weren’t home, so I just left a message on their machine, “It’s time!  Sheba’s in labor!”  (Well, what else would a grandmother-to-be do?) 

The contractions went on longer than I expected.  I could see the contractions and see the puppy starting to come out, but I just thought it would come out quickly once she started to deliver.  The first one was finally born, but it wasn’t moving, and she didn’t make any effort to remove the sac or clean it up at all.  I was devastated…the puppy was stillborn.  Altogether, it took close to an hour from the time of the first contraction until the time the puppy was actually delivered, so it must have been a very hard labor for her.  Sheba looked tired, but within a short time, I could see the contractions starting again.  I was already crying and I was getting scared for her and couldn’t bear to watch her go through that again, so J went to sit with her while I went into the next room.  I was still close enough to get updates on how she was doing without having to watch her struggle.  Besides, I was afraid to be there when the next one was born.

It took approximately 45 minutes before she finally delivered the second – also stillborn.  With this one, we could definitely see that there was some kind of infection in the fluid of the sac.  A short time later, Sheba suddenly got up and went to the door to go out.  I was glad that she was up and about, but I was also afraid to let her out in case she had contractions again, but it seemed like it was over, so I let her into the backyard and kept an eye on her.  It did give J a good opportunity to remove the puppies from the box while she was outside.

When I brought Sheba back in the house, she looked tired but she looked better than she had earlier.  I felt awful about the puppies, but I was thankful that it was over and she was okay.  I didn’t think she could have survived the hard labor of another stillborn puppy.  She went back into the box to lie down and she made no effort to look for her puppies.  She seemed to know that they hadn’t survived.

I went back to check on her a few minutes later and my heart sank when I saw that she was having contractions again!  I couldn’t take it; I felt like I was going to be sick.  She couldn’t survive another hour of labor.  J went in to watch her again while I went back into the other room.

I was crying again and praying that Sheba would be okay.  Most importantly, I wanted her to make it through, but I also prayed that we could have just one live puppy so that all her hard work wouldn’t be for nothing.  It was around this time that my best friend returned my call.  She sounded so excited, “How’s it going?”  I barely choked out, “Not good.”  I finally managed to tell her briefly that two puppies were stillborn and Sheba was tired and in labor again.  I told her I would call her back later.

Thankfully, this one didn’t take as long to deliver, but it seemed to be the smallest, so that was probably the reason that it was a little easier.  She did clean this puppy off, so we could see that it was all black, but it wasn’t moving either.  Oddly enough, this time she stayed in the box, lying with the puppy against her belly.  We left her alone for a little bit to rest, but I went back to check on her a few minutes later and I looked at the puppy for the first time.  As I was looking at it, I could have sworn I saw it’s head move a little to try to nurse.  I yelled to J, “I think this one’s alive!”  He came back in the room and we both stared at it, and sure enough, the little puppy was nursing.  I was ecstatic!

I called my best friend back and as soon as she answered, I blurted out, “We’ve got a live one!”  My prayers had been answered.  Not only did she not have to go through another difficult delivery, but now she had a son to show for all her hard work.  Of course, after all they had both been through, there was no way we could separate them, especially since he was the only one.  I named him Simba because, with everything he went through to come into this world, it reminded me of what Simba from the Lion King went through just to reach adulthood (I told you I was addicted to Disney movies).  Okay, so it wasn’t exactly the same, but we had just seen the movie, and all I could think of was that he grew strong against all odds.

We figured that since Simba seemed to be the runt of the litter, the other two puppies may have just been too big to survive toward the end of the pregnancy, but we never knew exactly why the other two didn’t survive.  The runts are usually the weakest because they get pushed aside by their littermates, but since Simba (sadly) had no littermates, he grew to big a big and healthy 50-lb dog.  Once Simba was full-grown, people were always amazed when we would be out walking with 35-lb Sheba and 50-lb Simba and we would tell him that he was her son!

I didn’t get another puppy that looked like Sheba, but I couldn’t have asked for a better puppy than Simba.  After everything Sheba went through, I gave up my vision and got Sheba spayed, but I’m glad I waited and grateful that we ended up with Simba.

Well, Sheba’s next chapter is actually Simba’s first chapter.  More about Simba in future posts.

Until next time…Maureen

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