Donate
Toya! Toya! Toya!

Toya! Toya! Toya!

ToyaSo you’ve made it out of a high-kill shelter and into Tabby’s Place: awesome!

But now it’s been over five years, and you’ve seen the cast of characters in your suite change, again and again and again. This business of being the cat with the longest-ever continuous stay at Tabby’s Place is getting old. Tabby’s Place life is good, but there’s a forever home out there, and you’re overdue to find it. What to do?

If you’re Toya, you take matters into your own, incredibly flirtatious paws.

ToyaOver the last five-plus years, it became a matter of shock and befuddlement among the staff and volunteers that personality-plus Toya had still not been adopted. When you’re cat #90, and Tabby’s Place is up to cat #731, you start to wonder what the heck is going on. I could almost picture Toya looking at her gorgeous, zaftig calico reflection in the suite glass and asking, “I’m beautiful, I’m lovable, and, gosh-darnit, people like me…so why the heck haven’t I gotten my home yet?”

Ah, but Toya was never lacking in confidence, so I really can’t picture her having even a glimmer of self-doubt. In fact, as her personality grew warmer and more wonderful over the years, she just tried harder – and ever more adorably – to catch the right adopter’s eye.

 About a year and a half ago, Toya “patented” the ultimate Toya move: a rolling, twisting, giddy and gleeful dance atop a scratching post in the window of her suite. More than once (OK, more than twenty times), Toya would get so lost in her through-the-window flirtation with a visitor that she’d lose her balance and tumble off the edge of the platform. But, such a moment wouldn’t throw Toya’s queen-sized confidence for a moment – she’d just hop back up and get back to stealing hearts. A long time ago, she stole every staff member’s heart for good (present company very much included!).

So it is with great delight that I report that Toya’s day has come, and her forever home was every bit worth waiting for. The calico dancer of Suite B is now queen of all she surveys, as “only cat” in a home with a mom who is wholly devoted to her. We hear that Toya’s already taken to sharing her mom’s bed, and both Toya and mom are loving every minute of getting to know one another.

ToyaIf Toya were commencement speaker for all the cats still waiting to “graduate” from Tabby’s Place into their own forever homes, I think this would be her advice: never give up. And, while you’re at it, dance.

7 thoughts on “Toya! Toya! Toya!

  1. This is wonderful kitty news! Toya and her family will do well together.

    But I have to correct something you said, Angela. A cat would never “tumble off the edge of the platform” accidentally the way you described. Instead, it was all part of Toya’s master plan to manipulate the humans.

    In other words, she did it on purpose. Understandable mistake, though.

  2. Toya is from my shelter. I personally brought her to Tabby’s Place in January of 2004. I am thrilled. She has come a long way from that terrified cat in the cage with no future. Thank you, Tabby’s Place, for making this possible for her.

  3. Fred: But of course. How silly of me to misunderstand Toya’s clearly intentional performance art. A cat, doing anything accidentally? What a silly human I am. 🙂

    Mishale: Yes indeed to all that! 🙂

    Kathi: Thank you so much for posting – I am thrilled and grateful that you’ve been part of Toya’s story through the full circle. Thank YOU for loving her since those early days.

  4. Angela, I visited Toya last December when I brought Spike, Tonya, Cory, and Melanie (who was adopted very quickly) to TP. Toya looked great, but I’m so glad she now has her own loving home. It sounds like the purrfect home for her.

  5. Toya was always one of my favorites when I visit Tabby’s — I will really miss her – but I am so thrilled that she is cuddling with her new momma in her forever home!

Leave a Reply