Woman runs hospice for abandoned dying dogs to give them the end of life they deserve

A woman from Mansfield has set up a hospice which treats pups who have less than six months to live.

Imagine being a dog, abandoned in the twilight years of your life, and left to die in the pound.

Heartbreaking, isn’t it?

Dog lover Nicola Coyle thinks so, which is why she set up The Grey Muzzle Canine Hospice Project – a hospice for dying, abandoned dogs.

46-year-old Nicola runs the hospice from her home and gives dogs the end of life they deserve by looking after them and helping them complete their bucket lists.

She takes in dogs from pounds and animal shelters, rescuing dogs who would otherwise be left to die there, or put down.

The retired nurse takes up to two dogs at a time, welcoming dogs who have six months or less to live.

Eating ice cream on the beach (Picture: SWNS)

Instead of living their final days locked away, dogs are treated to birthday parties, ice creams on the beach, steak pub dinners, and unlimited cuddles.

She even takes them through the McDonald’s drive-thru.

When the dogs’ final day comes, Nadine has them cremated and buries them in a special plot at her Nottingham home.

Eating ice cream in the park(Picture: SWNS)

Each dog has a different story, but Nicole thinks most of the dying dogs are abandoned by owners unwilling to pay for expensive vets bills or are ‘working dogs’ no longer considered useful.

One charity she regularly helps said they ‘couldn’t be more grateful’ to Nicola who has given some of their most desperate pets ‘love and care like they have never received’.

Eating ice cream on the road (Picture: SWNS)

‘It can be an utterly heartbreaking job, but someone has to do it,’ says Nicola.

‘I’m a complete animal lover and I just can’t bear the thought of them spending their final days, weeks or months without the love they deserve.

‘It can be really tough, but ultimately it’s so rewarding when you can make those times special.

‘I normally have a maximum of two dogs at any one time.

‘We’ll only take them in if the vet says they’ve got less than six months to live, so we’re focusing on end of life care.

‘I think the longest I’ve had one is around one year and the shortest was about two weeks.

‘I don’t know when their birthdays are so we make sure we throw all of them birthday party. If they’re well enough, we take them for a day at the seaside, they get fish and chips on the beach and ice cream.

‘We’ll also take them down to the local pub, it’s really dog friendly, and they’ll get a steak dinner too.’

Getting to ride in a police van (Picture: SWNS)

Nadine spends up to £500 on each dog, and pays for that with her own money, and cash raised through fundraising.

She’s been running the hospice out of her home for years, but only gave it an official name a year ago after caring for one of her favourites, Dougie the bulldog.

‘Dougie was found tied up outside a vet surgery one morning, and only given weeks to live after they found he had lymphoma.

‘He had the best temperament and just wanted to feel loved and safe,’ she says.

‘He was really poorly and not with us for long, but the difference I saw in him once he came with us from the pound, in just a matter of days, was incredible.

‘He was a totally different dog.

‘Dougie was about a year ago and that’s when I decided I didn’t want to see any more dogs go through that. I really believe they should get a nice ending.’

Living his best life at the Macca’s drive thru (Picture: SWNS)

Nicola asks the local vets, charities and pounds in the Sheffield and Nottingham area if they have any dying dogs that need end of life care.

Most are taken from places where they will be put to sleep if they are not re-homed within seven days.

Take Bumble, for example – a German Shepherd who was found as a stray, struggling to walk, with matted fur and an extremely painful back, in December 2017.

He was taken to Helping Yorkshire Poundies, a rescue and re-homing charity for abandoned dogs, but was extremely distressed and about to be put down when Nicola stepped in.

She threw him a birthday party and took him to the beach, before he passed away six weeks later.

Dogs are given love and cuddles that they may not otherwise receive in their end days (Picture: SWNS)

‘Bumble spent last weeks being spoilt in a comfortable home, and I couldn’t be more grateful,’ says Joanne Snaith, from Helping Yorkshire Poundies.

‘Nicola does an amazing job, taking in dogs when they’ve been kicked out by their owners right at the very end of their lives – giving them the love and care most have never received previously in their lives.

‘I absolutely admire the work of The Grey Muzzle Project.

‘Rescue is a very difficult “business to be in – it’s never ending hard work, and it’s heart breaking, but the majority of the time there’s a happy ending when the dogs find their new homes.

‘But for Nicola, she has to put herself through the emotional wringer with every dog, I can’t imagine how difficult that is.’

Nicola doesn’t know when the dogs’ birthdays are, so she throws them one last birthday party anyway

(Picture: SWNS)

Eating that delicious doggy birthday cake

(Picture: SWNS)

Nicola’s two children – Harry, 14, and Olivia, 15 – help her deal with the emotional and practical side of the hospice, along with her pal, Lisa Emmans.

‘My two teenagers are like my rock, I couldn’t do it without them,’ Nicola says.

‘They come with me and say goodbye when they’re put down. They even come to the crematorium.

‘We all get very attached to them, it’s very emotionally intense and we do mourn and grieve for them. We do need to have breaks between them.’

Sniffing out some doggy treats

(Picture: SWNS)

Making friends at the pub

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Every dog deserves this much attention

(Picture: SWNS)

‘We’ve got about 20 buried my garden, as well as my parents’ garden,’ Nicola continues.

‘It was getting a bit ridiculous. I couldn’t fit more in garden so I’ve got about 10 urns in my house.

‘Each dog costs about £500, which covers the transport to my house, their bucket lists and vet bills. Although it’s worth it, about a year ago I started taking donations, I just can’t really afford to keep doing it out of pocket.

‘We also help other people who’s dogs are nearing the end of life, so they don’t need to be abandoned, with something we call “friends before the end”.
‘We help raise funds for things like vet bills and cremation so other people care for their dogs at the end.’

amazing things you did in the 90s that no longer exist

amazing things you did in the 90s that no longer exist

It seems as though modern popular culture is more nostalgic than ever.

 From constant reboots of TV shows, a fashion re-generation and even throwback-style music, it seems as though we’re living in the midst of 90s culture for the second time – just with mobiles and the internet.

Many aspects of the 90’s have come back into fashion recently, but there are a few things we enjoyed back then, that we weirdly long for even now.

But it is my genuine belief that the best of our human society reached its peak in the year 2000 – modern enough that we weren’t really missing out on too much when it came to technology (mobiles and the internet were in their infancy, but still readily available) but without the cynical climate of fear that seems to permeate in the modern world.

Here are  amazing things that we could all do in the 90s that no longer exist:

Getting about ONE good play session out of a plastic rainbow Slinky before it got all tangled up:

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We had to work so hard

Go on MSN messenger and chat with our friends

Coming in just before the turn of the century was MSN messenger. As soon as you got back from school, you’d sign in to see who was online, and in many cases, the last question you would get asked at the end of the school day would be: “Will you be on MSN tonight?”

It started off as just a way of making competition against the AOL messenger service, but when AOL went belly-up in the early 2000s, MSN became the firm-favourite messenger for an entire generation. It started off as a fairly simple format, but then it developed with nudges, winks, emoticons and all sorts of nonsense like that. After a while, you could even play bowling and tic tac toe against your friends.

After 15 years, the service was shut down, but by this point, everybody had already moved onto other platforms like Facebook and WhatsApp.

 I spent so many hours with my finger on the ‘record’ button waiting for

 a good song to come on the radio

 Go to the shop and come out with a Push Pop

Who doesn’t remember these delights you used to get in after a hard day at school? I can always remember popping to the shop with my mum and pleading for her to buy me sweets…but in the end, my choice was always a Push Pop!

And of course, who can forget the slogans?! ‘Give life a push’, ‘Isn’t it time you pushed a Push Pop?’ and ‘don’t push ME, push a Push Pop!’. Classic stuff.

 Go and switch on the dial up modem to connect to the internet

I’m telling you now, you kids don’t know you’re born these days! Instant Wi-Fi connection? Ha! I remember the days when your internet connection was basically powered by potatoes and coal. My generation can also still vividly remember the pain of not having an instant internet connection.

We are the very last generation who remember the internet being a new fad, and also the constraints of dial-up. Oh, and that horrible, ghostly noise it used to make, as though every time you were trying to check your e-mails, you got an emergency broadcast message to alert you that either zombies or nuclear war was coming.

I’ll remind you of a typical scenario we all had to deal with.

You tell your friends at the end of the school day – “I’ll speak to you on MSN later”, and when you get home, what do you find? Your mom on the phone for hours…and hours…and hours…and hours.

And hours.

And hours.

…And hours.

Or god forbid if you were trying to organise a night out in the 90s or early 2000s, way back before group chats when you had to make about 50 different phone calls to each and every friend.

Okay, so these days the noise does bring back a sense of nostalgia, but maybe dial-up is where it belongs – in the past.

 Get a pair of Adidas trackies from JJB Sports

JJB Sports was always the place to go if you wanted sports merch or equipment. Perhaps you wanted to buy shin pads for cricket, a pair of goggles or the Argentina football jersey? JJB Sports was the shop.

It was always really reasonably priced too, considering these days you have to pay upwards of a hundred quid for a football shirt. If you wanted a pair of Adidas trackies, you would go to JJB’s without a second thought.

Unfortunately, bankruptcy sealed the fate of the high-street chain store and it was bought out by Sports Direct in 2012.

 Go to Woolworths and buy a pick n’ mix

It was one of the great tragedies of the great recession of 2008 when Woolworth’s met its end – in fact, we’re still not over it. The store was a very much cherished and is still a greatly missed part of all of our childhoods – especially the iconic pick n’ mix section.

You could argue that you could get pick n’ mix pretty much anywhere back in those days, but it just wasn’t the same – honestly.

 Go to TJ Hughes at Christmas

TJ Hughes was always favourite of mine; at Christmas especially. Not only did they do huge breakfasts like Littlewoods, but they sold pretty much any item you could possibly think of when it came to household bits and bobs.

I might be the only one thinking this, but I had no idea TJ Hughes was still going; honestly, I had no idea. I just figured that in the age of the high street which is now crumbling before our very eyes, a middle of the road discount department store would have been the first to go bust – but lo and behold, it has survived thus far.

3.Go to pour your cereal without wondering whether a toy would fall out

I’m not even sure whether this is still a thing, but it was huge back when I was a kid –  you would open your cereal to see if a toy would fall out. But then, I guess, it might be a bit of a choking hazard if you really think about out – but us 90’s kids survived!

2.Go to Electronics Boutique

This is one for true 90s kids, and if you’re like me, you’ll have treasured memories of going into Electronic Boutique and picking up the latest PlayStation magazine and finding the demo disc inside.

In 2002, Electronic Boutique was rebranded as Game.

1.Renting a film from Blockbusters

This may not make sense to you, but this is one less-convenient thing that I actually do miss. You might argue that convenience is paramount in the modern world, and in that regard, there is no better time to be alive than now. With Netflix, Amazon and all the of the other online streaming services, we can get thousands, even millions of hours of entertainment at the press of a button.

But it’s all just so charmless, isn’t it? It was none of this ‘Netflix and chill’ stuff.

I’m talking about getting a takeaway, and renting a movie – the proper cosy night in. Going to Blockbusters, having a mooch around, seeing what you fancy and then enjoying a marathon of movies.

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Okay, it’s less convenient, I grant you, but somehow, it meant more then. Renting a video was special.

The one thing I loved about Blockbusters in the 90s and early 2000s was the fact that you could rent the new game everybody was raving about and play it over a weekend. Even if you never planned on buying it, it just gave you something to do on a wet weekend. But if you did plan on purchasing it at some stage, it gave you a bit of a taster session.