Best Friends

We have rescued many other animals over the years, as well as horses, ponies and donkeys. This is Ziggy the cat and his best friend Zara. Ziggy’s story is harrowing as the poor wee mite had an awful start in this world.

We found him as a tiny kitten shivering lying next to his dead mamma under a shed, emaciated and full of worms. He very nearly died himself due to a nasty infection that he arrived with. So, it was touch and go with antibiotics for a good few weeks when he first came to us.

Thankfully, he made a full recovery. However, being feral and wild, it’s taken a long time for him to trust us but slowly he has turned into being a real sook and loves cuddles and attention, though he is still nervous with strangers.

His increased acceptance of us was partly due to the confidence our older German Shepherd called Storm gave him in us, who we sadly lost old age a few years ago. And as can be seen, due to his trust in Storm, he immediately loved Zara from the beginning. Not that she felt the same about him at the start. 😳😬

Which made for a few broken ornaments and some wild chases around the living room, until she learned to love him along with our other rescue cats. ❤️

Zara was adopted from a local rescue centre as an older puppy, as her previous rehoming hadn't gone well as she had a lot of issues. Tragically, Zara had been brutalised by whoever had her in her early stages of life. This has resulted in her being partially blind to what our vets suspect is from blunt force trauma to her head, and she has also recovered from a broken nose to name a few of the horrors she’s endured before coming to us.

She also has PTSD, which is understandable. Whilst she has made great steps forward to enjoying a better life whilst being with us, her past still causes her to have fear-based reactions. Therefore, ongoing care and mindfulness are needed around her to help her cope with all she has been through.

Most days she does incredibly well, but occasionally she reverts to the terrifying state she arrived in, with trembling fits of fear. We have noticed this more so when she is around larger teenage boys. So, we suspect that it’s been somebody like that who has hurt her so much in the past.

Thankfully, all that woe is left behind for these two and all the other animals at our small sanctuary. As they now enjoy a happy life with us receiving care and lots of love. We get asked a lot about how people could donate to us to help us with animals like Ziggy and Zara ….. And I guess it’s a bit weird being told that we don’t want your donations – LOL.

This is because we’ve developed our own strategy that works for us to fund our centre. As we hand-make our Rope Tack items and other horse-friendly products to sell them to help support our animals including Ziggy and Zara. So, if you’d like to support us please have a browse through our website, as everything you buy from us goes back into helping animals -available on this link :

https://www.naturalhorse.co.nz/horsemanship-gear

We want to say a huge thank you to all of our customers for all the support you have shown us throughout 2022, as without you none of this would be possible.

From all at NaturalHorseNZ