My conversation with Tim isn't as clear to me. We've had so many of the same conversations over the past 20 years of marriage that they become a blur. But I bet it started with "Honey are you in a good mood?" and ended with "Can you help me make the barn into a warm nursery for them?" Sarah and Daisy our other two female dogs were not keen on new visitors so we knew we couldn't bring them in the house. We knew nothing about mother dogs and puppies or their needs, but we sure learned in a hurry. We hung heat lamps and made a box for the mom and puppies with high sides, and we made another box for just mom so she could get away from the puppies if she needed a break. We bedded everything with clean blankets and towels, and we brought in food dishes and water buckets. All of this was done before we ever laid eyes on the mom or her puppies. The next day the Heartland dog warden showed up in a pickup truck. Inside the truck he had a box of day-old puppies, and tied up in the bed of the truck was the saddest looking Yellow Lab mix I had ever seen. She was probably 40 pounds underweight. You could have picked her up by her rib cage. She was filthy. And while she was frantic to get to her puppies, she was terrified of men so she just cowered in the bed of the truck. Tim and I quickly got her and the puppies into their new temporary home in the barn. Once the puppies were placed in the puppy box momma climbed right in and started nursing them. We knew we couldn't just call her "momma dog" so we temporarily named her "Shelby". (I know, "Shelby" from Shelby, not very clever of us).