The story of Toby the feline is an absolutely heartbreaking one, but luckily, it’s a story that ultimately has a happy ending. Toby belonged to a family in Wake County, but they didn’t want to take care of him anymore and gave the feline up. The local shelter then decided to take Toby back in after they adopted him to this family a couple of days earlier.

It appears that the human owners wanted to give Toby a chance, but the cat wasn’t getting along with the other family cats.

That’s why they decided to return Toby to the shelter, to see if they could find a new family for him. They figured that it wasn’t worth it or just impossible for all of the felines to get along with each other, so Toby was left behind without a home once again. However, it turns out that the cat didn’t want to leave his family at all, he simply wasn’t ready to say goodbye.

One day, Toby escaped from his enclosure at the shelter. It turns out that the kitten walked no less than 12 miles back to his old home.

It certainly was quite the shock when Toby’s old family encountered him on the doorstep, but their reaction was absolutely disheartening.

They certainly were not impressed that their former pet walked all this way back to his previous home. Instead, they wanted to euthanize him. The SPCA staff was absolutely heartbroken when they heard about this death sentence.

“They took him to a shelter and asked them to euthanize him,” the communications director of the SPCA of Wake County, Tara Lynn, said to The Dodo. “It was just so heartbreaking to know he made it all the way back to his family, and that was their response.”

Luckily, the shelter staff downright refused to put this poor kitten down.

Right away, they called the SPCA to see what they could do to help this poor animal. They figured that he could get a medical check-up and a better chance at finding him a forever home that was actually willing to keep him and take care of him. Unfortunately, poor Toby was actually dealing with a few medical issues, but the SPCA was determined to get him back to a hundred percent.

“He tested positive for feline immunodeficiency virus, and also had an upper respiratory infection,” Lynn told. “We got him treated for the infection, which took a little while.”

As his condition started to improve, he started to interact with the other kittens at the SPCA as well. Even though Toby did neem some time to socialize and warm up to the other four-footers, his sweet and affectionate personality started showing towards both the staff and the other cats.

“Initially, the seven-year-old FIV positive kitty wasn’t very excited about sharing a room with other cats, but he quickly became a volunteer favorite.”

When he was fully recovered, the SCPA posted an ad on social media and it didn’t take long before a number of families offered to take him in.

The lucky one is Michele Puckett from Raleigh, North Carolina. As soon as she entered the shelter to meet Toby, these two had fallen in love with each other!

“She had no hesitation whatsoever,” Lynn said about Michele who came to visit at the shelter. “She was on a job site and just dropped everything to come here.”

Michele couldn’t be happier with her new family member.

“He is just so sweet, cuddly and loving,” Puckett told The Dodo. “He’s also pretty much taken over our bed, as if he’s lived here forever. He loves to relax and lay under our pillows.”

“It’s really hard to understand how someone could have dropped him off to be put to death like they did. It’s shocking, but we feel so grateful he was saved. There are tons of pets who are easily discarded by their families or a breeder,” Michele concluded. “I really hope he inspires other people to go out and adopt.”

Thankfully, Toby now finally has a loving and forever home thanks to Michele and the SPCA.

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Source: The Dodo