The power of supportive cat lovers!
The bond between a pet and their owner is pretty unbreakable, even when you are thousands of miles apart.
George is a ten-year-old ginger can who lived with his owner in Sydney, Australia all his life. When his owner, Fiona, had to return to Ireland last March due to ill health, she left George with her Australian neighbour. Although she initially planned to return to Australia, George’s owner had to stay in Ireland.
According to the Facebook page, George was living with a neighbour for the first few months,but they soon moved away “leaving poor George to fend for himself”.
“Sometime later, George either was dumped or managed to travel 20km away from the only home he knew.”
Thankfully George was microchipped and he was tracked down and brought to the local vet and that is when his owner decided to get him home.
George has racked up quite a few bills for the vets and the cost of getting him home would obviously be very high, so Fiona’s friends decided to set up a Facebook page called Bring George Home as well as a fundraising page.
In July the page was set up and the support from cat lovers everywhere was incredible.
Ronan Cahill is a web developer who was asked by Fiona’s friends to help set it all up.
“I had to ring the girls a few days later in absolute disbelief to say that George already had over €500 in donations.” He said.
Although the support was prominent from the beginning Ronan said that they were concerned about the cat and the money it would take to get him home.
“He was unlikely to survive as the rescue centre had advertised him for adoption but thankfully (probably because of his age) nobody was interested. They were very good in fairness but we did have to raise the target to €3,500 and there were doubts we’d make it.”
However, donations get coming “from a fiver posted by a lady on social welfare wishing she could send more to Australian and Irish online donations of up to €150 and generous donations from family and friends” they managed to hit their target.
George boarded his flight yesterday and updates were posted on the facebook page all day about his impending arrival.
When George made arrived in Dublin he was greeted by his owner Fiona, who, needless to say, was delighted to see him again.
“There were some emotional scenes in Swords as the two were reunited.” Ronan said.
“I’ve just been off the phone to them, there’s great excitement and they look forward to coming west with George later this afternoon.”
