Nina Clayton

Sad news, 13 August 2021

Nina’s mum said,

“I thought I ought to let you know that our darling Nina, adopted on or around 15 September 2007 at about one year old, died on 13 August this year.

She was a wonderful companion and immensely affectionate. She was a feisty girl who always put puppies mercilessly in their places and once kept a large gentle Airedale prisoner in a corner of our sitting room when she was already an old lady.

Her feisty nature is indicated by the fact that I believe she was in season when she was picked up, but not pregnant!

We miss her so much.”

History

Beautiful NINA was picked up as a stray by an ISPCA Inspector. She is approximately 2 years old, is very thin but doesn’t seem to be too interested in food. She has recently been spayed by us in Ireland.

Sandie says “She is a really lovely girl, loves to be next to you all the time but then goes off for a while for time out. She gets on terrifically well with other dogs. She is very good in the house, although not completely house-trained yet and she does love to push past you when going through a door – it can be quite a battle of wills. She will be a very easy dog to train and will make someone a great pet”.

UPDATE ON NINA FROM HER FOREVER MUM, DIANA

The time has flown since we collected her in September and she is now such a part of our lives we feel as though we have had her forever.

She is wonderful in the park, not at all distracted by other dogs – as long as we have the ball she is fixated on us. We’ve been working hard on the sit /stay to stop her grabbing a bit of finger in her enthusiasm to grab the ball, and on the whole she’s improving although some days are better than others. A friend of mine says that she is convinced that Nina “has musk in her veins” as all the males make a bee-line for her. However, she takes no interest, merely regards all the adulation as an interruption in the main purpose of her life, which is to chase and retrieve her ball. We are still working on walking on the lead which again is sometimes perfect with no pulling, but at other times the very opposite!

She’s highly intelligent and very good at problem-solving, for example finding her way in through a different door if you shut her out – something our dear old lab was never able to work out. That means that we have to make sure that we’re always a step ahead of her – not easy. She likes watching TV and thought she’d try out an Andrex puppy trick with a roll of loo paper – sometimes her tricks are so funny it’s very difficult to stop laughing and tell her off, and she takes full advantage of that.

Although she is so lively she can be very restful as well and likes to sit in front of the fire and have a good snooze. Although she’d rather be with us the whole time, she is really very good when left alone occasionally. She’s also very good when people come to the house – excited at first of course, but very quickly calms down and everyone adores her.

We hope to start training classes shortly (I’ve a feeling it’ll be training for us rather than her!). I hope to be able to send you some photos soon – not as adept as you all are on that! She’s still pretty skinny but is working on it as she eats everything and is no trouble at all to feed.