Nina was found curled in a ball in a freezing, muddy yard, and she looked as if she had given up.
She was a two-year-old American bulldog cross — black, with tan or cream on her muzzle and lower legs — and she was worryingly skinny. Her nails were overgrown. Her skin was sore. Her fur was filthy with mud and faeces. There was no proper shelter. She was huddled next to a friend, one of several dogs in the same Nottinghamshire yard, including a dog called Ava, and the cold was in the ground as well as the air.
RSPCA inspector Deb Scotcher never forgot the way Nina looked in that moment: a dog who had stopped expecting anyone to come.
A towel, and then the licks
When the team wrapped her in a towel and lifted her, the story changed in a way rescuers still talk about. The exhausted dog covered them in licks. However much she had shut down in the mud, she had not lost the ability to reach for kindness.
That was about ten days before Christmas 2023, not the following year. The date matters, because the later, warmer pictures of Nina on a sofa were taken after many months of care, and they should not be confused with the night she was found.
She was taken to the RSPCA’s Block Fen Animal Centre in Cambridgeshire. There, staff could start the slow work: cleaning the coat, treating sore skin, trimming the nails, feeding her properly, and letting a thin dog learn what an indoor room feels like. She had never really lived inside before.
A first home, the following spring
In April, Nina was adopted by Alison Southgate, then 65, who lives in Stowmarket, Suffolk, with her sons Jareth and Jordan. It was Nina’s first time as a house dog. The Mirror told that later chapter in December 2024, once she had had time to settle: a sofa, a family, a dog who had arrived from a yard with nothing.
Those pictures are the end of the journey, and they belong in the record of what happened to her. They are not where the story should start, and they are not something to skip ahead to if you want to understand what was done for her. The beginning is the muddy yard, the thin body, the towel, and the licks.
What “given up” looks like
Dogs who have been left outside without shelter in winter do not always bark and run toward a rescuer. Some shut down. They conserve heat. They curl into a friend. They look, as Deb Scotcher said of Nina, as if they have given up.
That is why a rescue in a yard is not only a lift and a van ride. It is veterinary care for a dog who may have sore skin, overgrown nails, parasites, and a body that has been running on too little food in too much cold. Emaciation is a medical fact, not a spectacle. The point of showing how thin Nina was is to be honest about what she survived, not to linger on it.
The other dogs in the yard, including Ava, were part of the same job. Nina’s story is the one told here because her later life inside a home was so clearly a first. A two-year-old American bulldog cross should not have to wait until a rescue van arrives to find out what a blanket is.
How you can help dogs like Nina
If you are concerned about dogs left outside without shelter, especially in freezing weather, contact the RSPCA or your local authority and give a precise location. Do not put yourself at risk, and do not assume a quiet, curled-up dog is “fine.”
If you can foster or adopt a dog who has never lived indoors, be ready for a slow start. Nina needed time, food, and people who would let her learn the house. That is skilled, patient work, and it is how a yard dog becomes a family dog.
Nina’s life now is a sofa in Stowmarket, with people who wanted her. It started in a freezing yard, in the mud, with a towel and a team who would not walk past her.
Story retold from public reporting. Credit: RSPCA / Inspector Deb Scotcher / The Mirror (December 2024). Photos are the property of their owners; license before use. Any footage or stills produced for this page are newly created illustrations inspired by the public account, not the original press photos.
