A phone call from my brother led to an unexpected occurrence recently. He was taking care of a French Bulldog while her owners were on holiday in Cape Town. The dog just had a baby, he told me in a flat spin, and nobody knew she was pregnant.

And to top it all, he ended, the mom wanted nothing to do with the baby and the baby refused to latch. What could I do? I had to fetch the baby.

Famous last idea. I came home with a mom and her newborn. People often say, “Oh, how hard can it be? Puppies are cute.” Those people have never met a day-old French Bulldog puppy who believes sleep is optional, milk must be served immediately and human dignity is negotiable.

The vet said the mom went into early labour due to the crackers going off on New Year’s Eve. Hence the black and tan baby the size of a small croissant. I told myself I’ve got this.

After all, I could read instructions. I owned a kettle. My confidence was high. That confidence lasted exactly seven minutes.

The feeding schedule alone was a cruel joke. Every two hours. Day and night. Which means my life was now divided into “before feeding” and “why am I still awake?”.

I’ve learnt to warm formula to a precise temperature. The puppy latched on like a tiny, determined vampire after a huge struggle, making sounds normally reserved for clogged drains. Milk dribbled.

Stains decorated my shirts and pants. Sleep deprivation set in quickly. I began hallucinating squeaks even when the puppy was silent.

I rocked imaginary puppies while standing in the kitchen. I celebrated bowel movements like major sporting events because, yes, I now stimulated digestion with a cotton pad and whispered encouragement like a lunatic. My world shrank.

I no longer measured time in hours, but in feeds. And yet, on day five – somewhere between the 3am feeding and the sunrise squeak – something happened. The puppy settled.

Her tiny body relaxed. She slept, warm and trusting, for the full two hours each time. Despite the exhaustion, the panic googling, the milk-stained clothes and the complete loss of sanity, I realised this tiny creature was alive because I showed up.

Every two hours. Without fail. Hand-raising a day-old French Bulldog puppy is not for the weak. It’s for the stubborn, the sleep-deprived and the slightly unhinged. And, yes, I’ll do it all over again.