Meeting Pet-sitter Shirley enabled pet lover Ronna and her husband Brian to take a holiday for the first time in years!

Homeowner and pet lover Ronna saves the lives of hundreds of abandoned pets. Once in a while she cannot resist adopting them. Consequently she has a home full of cats and dogs. Currently she has 10! From time to time we live to feature the work of members of our community because their work and stories are extraordinary and inspiring.  Recently we interviewed Ronna after hearing about her tireless and inspiring work from her Pet-sitter Shirley. Read on to hear this lovely story of pet rescue in the South of Spain discovered during a pet-sitting collaboration.

Pet Rescuer looking for a Pet-sitter

Pet lover Ronna, also known as ‘Targadina’ one of our homeowners on HouseSitMatch.com is passionate about rescuing any pets she sees in distress which includes stray dogs and cats,. In the last 14 years since living in Malaga she has worked tirelessly with SOS charity (Spay Our Strays) and on her own to raise funds to feed and rescue abandoned cats and dogs in her neighbourhood.

Originally from Brighton where Ronna had kept the florist at Brighton station, they have always loved Spain. In fact for 38 years she has holidayed in Spain and eventually decided to move permanently to the sun. Brian and Ronna first moved to Alhuarin de la Torre about 14 years ago, and Ronna immediately started volunteering to help at the SOS (Spay Our Strays) charity. She and her husband Brian would work in the week and then at the weekend spend time repairing kennels, cleaning the animal shelter, feeding the animals and generally caring for the rescued strays.  In addition to their voluntary work Ronna and Brian started raising money for the strays by washing, repairing, recycling and selling donated clothes furniture and any other salable items at their local market in Coin.

Ronna works to raise money for the stray pets throughout the week. She drives her yellow can to collected second hand clothes, books and furniture bringing all the artifacts home to wash clean and prepare. And whomever is staying with her or visiting for a holiday comes along to help.  It’s a house rule!

Recently Ronna’s mother Pat (81 years old) spent two weeks driving with Ronna in the car to look after Frieda the newly adopted kitten. The kitten was abandoned and now needs to be bottle fed regularly until she gains a little weight and becomes stronger.

They never took a holiday because it had always seemed too difficult to look for a suitable Pet-sitter who would respect their home and care for their pets as they do.

How to Find a Pet-sitter

For the first time in 14 years Ronna and Brian decided to take a holiday and started looking for a house pet-sitter to care for their fur family.  HouseSitMatch.com was recommended to them, they registered as homeowners  and posted their holiday dates. Within a few days Shirley applied for their pet-sitting housesit and within 3 weeks she was in Spain caring for 10 pets in Ronna and Brian’s home.  It was a good match; Shirley adores animals and volunteers herself in England so caring for Ronna’s fur family came naturally. Ronna and Brian felt comfortable leaving Shirley in charge they liked her and felt she had great values and would respect their property and pets, taking care of them as they would.

Trustpilot review by Ronna

Someone that we could trust with out animals !!