Coleen Nolan has melted hearts with the story of a touching new addition to her family.
During today’s episode of Loose Women, Coleen gushed to fellow panellists Ruth Langsford, Kelle Bryan, and Myleene Klass about her newest pet, a 14 year old rescue dog named Buster.
“So I’d already decided we have too many animals – so no more animals. But then Ciara sent me this video saying this little dog is in the rescue centre, he’s 14,” she said on the show today.
“The people who owned him have just died, and the dog he grew up with has just died, and she said, ‘No, my mum’s not going to take it’. He’s 14, and it’s really, really hard to find adopters for older dogs, but when I went to see him in the sanctuary, he just cried, and he was trembling because he didn’t want to go back in, and I was like, oh, we’ll foster him. There was no way I’d give this dog back.”
The TV favourite admitted to her love of animals, despite having already decided no more pets would join her brood.
“We’re up to 29 pets, but they’re not all adopted and fostered. We’re up to 29, and I hate odd numbers. I set a limit at six, and now we’re up to 29, but I inherited a lot when I moved,” she explained.
When quizzed by Ruth on how Buster is getting on, Coleen happily reported: “He’s loving life now and rules the roost.”
Coleen recently introduced a new addition to her family, a horse named Bojack. She shared a video on social media, saying: “Welcome home to my brand new horse, Bojack! He is a beautiful 12-year-old Irish gelding. I can’t wait to show you all more videos and pics.”
She has also penned a new book titled ‘A Hand To Hold’, which explores the themes of death and grief, including the loss of pets.
“I wanted to cover all forms of death from parents and family and siblings to husbands and wives. And animals, you know, people really grieve over animals, and unless you’re an animal lover, you don’t get it,” she explained.
“But it’s really as strong as any grief for some people. I’m an animal lover, so I get it. But I think the hardest chapter that I found difficult to write, and also difficult then to record for the audiobook which I’ve done, was the chapter on losing a child. To me, it has got to be the worst thing ever. And I found it sad listening to people talking about losing a child.”
Loose Women airs weekdays at 12.30pm on ITV1 and ITVX