My name is Amanda Drew, I live in Bowral NSW, Australia. I have 7 rescue babies Tiger, Rufus, Bella, Max, Jessie, Heath and Buddy. 4 cats and 3 dogs.
Each one of them was unwanted, thrown away, left to fend for themselves or abused.
We're losing our home due to circumstances beyond our control.
We may not have been in a flood, cyclone, hurricane etc but it's been so traumatic on the family.
Thank goodness we have a rental property waiting for us in Perth WA because there are still some kind people in this world that understand what were going through.
We are still trying to raise the money to get there. No dog trailer,
tow bar and hitch, accommodation or petrol money as yet.
We will travel by car from the Southern Highlands of NSW to
Perth WA with our 7 furbabies.
We need your help to purchase a tow bar and hitch, a dog
trailer, petrol, food, accommodation and relocating some of our belongings.
Our journey will take approximately 7 days (approximately 3839+ kms).
Below is a little story about each of our pets.
Twitter https://twitter.com/Tiger_bombay
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/tiger_australian_bombay/?hl=en
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/tigpreston/
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/tiger.preston
Tiger - Australian Bombay aged 8, was found by the local police when he was about four weeks old, tied up in a plastic bag in a dumper bin. He had a really torturous start.
Since Tiger moved in to our home, he has become "quite the little man". He goes up to visitors at the door and says 'hello'. You'll rarely hear him meow, all he says is 'hellooooo'.
He also loves rocking in his hammock, playing with his soccer ball and walking on his lead. He’s never in a cat cage, even when we go to the vet.
Tiger is known for his calm and placid personality, but he can also be a little cheeky.
He does a lot of high-fives, he's got so much personality.
Each day he does like to take his biscuit packets and throw them at your head whilst you’re sleeping until you wake up.
He hops into the trolley at his local pet shops, and loves to do his own shopping. He's one-in-a-million when it comes to cats.
Tiger's also a bit of a daredevil in fact he once decided he could fly, and yes at that time he was chasing a fly, but he misjudged the distance and leapt off the top of the bannisters only to fall and fracture his arm. It’s not slowed him down any though, however he now has to have caltrophen and vitamin B injections monthly, and half capsule of green lipped oyster daily sprinkled on his food.
He can get a little anxious so he also had to have major surgery last year and endless tests and the result being that he suffers depression when left on his own, even though he has his bff’s Rufus, Bella and now Heath with him. He just doesn’t like being at home without us.
Did I mention that Tiger also has his own skateboard and yes he can ride it! He can take a run up and kick off to get it going.
Tiger is also well travelled, he goes everywhere in the car on his harness and seatbelt. You can often spot him on his drives on the local highways. He’s also travelled across Australia and back in the car. When we reached one of the borders, the border patrol said “well that’s something you don’t see every day, a cat in a harness and seatbelt, and in fact it’s the first one we’ve ever seen!” Can you imagine what they'll say thid time? 4 cats on the back seat and 2 dogs in the trailer!
Tiger is also the "cat amongst the pigeons cat". He has appeared in the Rosedale Wines SA campaign for the brand. He's also been featured in the Southern Highlands Newspaper.
Tiger’s nicknames are Bombay, Roast and King of the Bombay’s.
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/bella_angry_cat/?hl=en
Bella - Tabby/Tortoise Shell aged 5, was rescued from a construction work site in 2012, and she literally was dodging brown snakes on a daily basis. Brown snakes are one of the most dangerous snakes here in Australia. Her life would have been frightening to say the least.
I received a call from Construction Manager friend of mine to say “we are going on Christmas break, and we have a cat living on site that we don't want to abandon over the break, can you come get her?". Of course I said. I arrived on site to collect Bella, and no less than 40 construction workers came over to say goodbye to her.
Bella is the most gentle, cuddly, cute and beautiful girl, although she can be a little tenacious at times but that’s usually when she doesn’t get her own way.
Personality wise, Bella thinks she’s the boss of all the other rescue pets. She rules the roost in her mind.
Our little girl is extremely smart, loves to give high fives, does lots of tricks and also travels in the car.
She lies in front of the heater in winter and refuses to move, and in summer Bella loves to sunbake on the lounge, however we have to encourage her to move often otherwise she’ll stay there all day.
At times Bella has happy hour and will chase anyone or anything in her path.
She knows when it’s time for the boy’s to play and gives them a wide berth.
Bella also loves her food so we put her on the walking machine at least twice a week. She’s our little girl and we love her dearly.
Bella has featured in a commercial for Feliway and also in the Southern Highlands Newspaper.
Her nicknames are Bella Cinderella and Cinders.
https://www.instagram.com/rufus_maine_coon/?hl=en
Rufus - Maine Coon, aged 8 was rescued from one of the local shelters. The shelter told us that he had previously been living with an elderly couple and had to be surrendered. He was beaten with walking sticks by his previous owners.
Rufus is a quiet, undiscerning, a bit of a loner yet gentle little man.
Albeit I say little, Rufus weighs in at almost 8.5 kgs. Biscuits are his main love in life. We have to watch how many he has, as he has a tendency to eat the whole bowl to himself every time it is filled.
He has quite a wild streak in him and will climb almost anything, by anything I mean the screen doors, blinds anything at all.
He’ll often chase his tail for ages and even when he gets it, will let it go, and then start chasing it again.
He’s a big boy for a cat but that doesn’t stop him at all.
His meow is so little for such a big cat, but his personality is second to none. He just has to look at you and you want to cuddle him. Those big green eyes melt your heart every time.
He’s not intimidated by dogs or other cats yet he wouldn’t hurt a fly. He does chase them and you’ll often find him hanging off the screen door when in happy hour mode.
His nicknames are Rufio and Bubba Roo.
Max – Staffie x Rottweiler, 12 years old, he was rescued by us after my grandmother passed away.
Max is quite large and yet very gentle.
He is loyal, loving and highly protective of his family.
His personality is that of a puppy who loves to play. He loves going for long walks but recently has been diagnosed with a deterioration with one of his discs. He’s now on daily medication and seems to be coping ok at the moment.
He sounds the alert if someone approaches the house and loves to talk to the neighbour’s pets.
Everyone knows him in the neighbourhood and knows if there’s any strangers about.
He can do loads of tricks including sitting, rolling, begging and high fives.
Max loves to pinch the Beagles food before they finish, so you have to stand guard while he sits beside you and watches them eat then waits to see if it’s ok for him to eat their leftovers, but were talking about Beagles here and they don’t often leave leftovers.
He loves the beach however hates water. He’ll bark at the waves as they crash on the beach and then run back towards you for assurance that he’s ok. Then off he’ll go again to bark at the waves some more.
He’s highly intelligent and loves learning new tricks.
His nicknames include Maximus, Seeny and Maxy.
Jessie is an American Beagle aged 12, and she was rescued from a sydney shelter.
Little is known about the horrific circumstances that saw Jessie abused and beaten from her past owners. She was ceased by the authorities and housed in the shelter. The only thing the staff would tell us is that she doesn’t like humans at all and be prepared because we may need to bring her back.
We weren’t ever going to take her back.
She was timid and frightened when we first bought her home.
Since rescuing her some 10 years ago, she has become one of the most beautiful furbabies ever.
It took us almost 12 months to earn her trust and show her that she would never be harmed again.
Jessie would run away and hide for hours on end when we went to see her. We came up with a plan of action. We would sit near her, though not too close to her, and wait for her to make the first move towards us. We repeated this for ages, days turned into months and then finally one day she sat right where we would sit and she barked until we came to see her. Since then she’s come right out of her shell.
She plays, fetches, does loads of tricks and even woo woo’s at everyone and everything.
Life is one big game to her now and we couldn’t be happier.
Did I mention she’s another alarm for anyone or anything walking up to the house! She will talk and talk for ages and until you go and look to see whose there, well let’s just say she’ll keep on talking if you don’t.
Jessie loves to go on walks and unlike Max loves water. She’ll chase the sprinkler around all day if you let her.
Jessie’s nicknames are Babers, Just a baby and Jess.
Buddy the English Beagle, aged 10 years rescued from a family that no longer wanted him.
I was reading the classifieds just before Christmas approximately 6 years ago and found an advert for a Beagle for $150.00. I thought to myself oh he is so cute but it was almost Christmas and we had planned to go away. I said to the kids if he’s still there when we get back we can go and have a look at him.
We returned from our break and I rang the number in the advert and said was he still available and can we come down and meet him. "Sure" the lady said, "oh and by the way he’s now free".
When we enquired as to why they no longer wanted him they explained "we want to breed other dogs and Buddy is not suitable". We asked was there anything wrong with him? To which they replied "no we just don’t want him".
We jumped in the car and went to have a look at him.
He was beautiful, a little shy but you have to expect that. We said we’ll take him.
We put Buddy in the car and drove home.
When we arrived home he was more than happy to explore, eat his food and then go to bed.
Early the next morning we looked out the window and thought that’s strange there’s a snorkel and flippers in the backyard!
We went to the garage to find that Buddy had completely reorganised the garage.
All the boxes were open, every one of them. We looked over at Buddy and he was lying right in the middle of them sound asleep.
We tried to clean up the garage but Buddy had other plans. No sooner did we pick up the items then Buddy would unpack them again. We found out that he loved boxes but with nothing in them, they all had to be empty.
Buddy is playful, always happy to see us and extremely smart. He loves anything he has to find as long as he can keep it.
Not too long ago we had to take him to the vet as his eye lid had ballooned out into a large cyst almost overnight. When the vet examined they discovered a second smaller lump on his tail. The vet operated immediately and it was found both were cancerous. They removed both the lumps including some of his eyelid. To date he’s been given the all clear.
Buddy loves to talk and talk and yes talk some more but only during the daylight hours. He’ll talk to the sky if you let him. I guess this was another reason why his previous owners no longer wanted him. We love him including all his qwerks.
Buddy’s nicknames are Budster, Sir Bark A lot and Buddy Holly.
https://www.instagram.com/heath_braxton_the_cat/?hl=en
Heath – Australian Bombay aged 9 months, rescued from a shelter. His owners had surrendered him saying that they no longer wanted him.
Oh my, what a character he is. Full of life, playful, cheeky, mischievous and a gorgeous little furbaby.
He reminds us of one of those toys where the batteries never run out. When he does finally realise it’s bedtime he runs upstairs sits at the end of the bed and then cries for cuddles. He’ll snuggle till you fall asleep and then decides it’s time to play.
All night long all you hear is him kicking the ball or whatever toy he is playing with. He’ll then go to bed as the sun is coming up.
Throughout the day he’s eager to get up to mischief by climbing into cupboards, hiding in boxes, stalking you constantly and wrestling with Rufus and Tiger, even if they don’t want to.
He loves going in the car and is slowly getting use to wearing a harness.
Did I mention the word FOOD! Well he loves food that much that he will wait for the other cats to finish and then clean every bowl.
When we first got Heath he sneezed a couple of times but we thought nothing of it as he’d been given all of his vaccinations. He started to get a bit of a temperature, weepy eyes and sneezing a lot more so we rushed him to the vet. The diagnosis was cat flu. He was placed onto antibiotics and we were told to ring if he wasn’t getting better. After 3 days he wasn’t getting any better so we took him back to the vets. He was given more antibiotics. The vet also said to be careful with our other 3 cats but they were ok. Since then he’s been ok. He’s had another check-up and been given the all clear.
He’s was so little when we first got him but he’s almost the same size as Tiger now.
We’ve only had him a short time but he’s a real heart stealer and he’s found his furever home.
Rescue animals usually hope for a new, loving home who they can stay with forever. Our furbabies will always have a home. We’d do anything for them, we love them unconditionally.
Author Amanda Drew
