The name Shaina is of Yiddish origin and means beautiful and no one can deny that the Shaina I am talking about is anything less than gorgeous.  This Labrador has heart meltingly warm eyes, a lovely golden coat and unfortunately also the enthusiasm of a three year old with a sugar rush.  Shaina’s boisterous temperament is the reason behind her abandonment, 2 months ago at Friendicoes.  A family who claimed that she was too much for them to handle and they weren’t able to look after her, left her at our Delhi shelter.

Tandrali who is quite adept at fostering, however was undeterred by Shaina’s energy and took her home. While Tandrali started to burn the phone lines in an attempt to find her a forever home, Shaina proceeded to live up to her reputation of being unmanageable - Tearing apart newspapers, running circles around the living room like some wild dervish, jumping up on horrified passer bys while on her walk, scaring the day lights out of all other pets in the house with her mad antics and pulling the ears of Nemo, the basset hound. Days however turned to weeks but there were no takers for Shaina, things suddenly went from bad to worse when another Lab adoption failed and the dog Snoopy was returned to Tandrali.  As fate would have it just as Tandrali was resigning herself to life with 2 mad labs (and 7 other dogs) in walked Sunny looking for a pet to adopt. Sure enough it was love at first sight and Sunny took Shaina home.

Sunny and Shaina are both bonding now despite Shaina’s determination to tear apart her new home and drive her new family up the wall. Some of her antics include jumping over the park fence into a drain while on a walk, picking up fights with the neighborhood dogs, pushing Sunny’s mother off her bed and taking her place on the bed, pulling down the washing line, taking apart the kitchen dustbin into bits and pieces, tearing apart the kitchen hunting for food in spite of 3 meals a day and gnawing away at the sofa wood while her chews and bones lie around in solitary splendor.
 








In spite of their initial reservations and pleas with Sunny to send Shaina back to us, Sunny’s parents have also now grown fond of her.  It is a testament to Sunny’s love for Shaina that regardless of her behavior and his long working hours he takes her out on an hour long run each evening and brings her all the way from his residence in East Delhi to Friendioces in South Delhi which is almost two hours drive in peak traffic and not an easy feat when u have a crazy dog on board. When we visited them last weekend for a house check we found a happy dog and a doting owner albeit a bit hassled who feels his pet’s love, loyalty and company more than enough makes up for all the chaos she creates.

Shaina has now calmed down and gone from being absolutely unmanageable to just a “tad over excited” and we all hope that with time and age she will turn out to be a very well behaved dog.  Successful adoptions are always a morale booster for all of us working at the shelter and we wish Sunny and Shaina all the best for the future.