I’m Toeny… five years old, twenty‑five pounds of soft fur and extra toes, and still trying to understand how my whole world disappeared in a single night. One moment I had a home. A couch I wasn’t supposed to scratch. A person who used to call me “big guy” and laugh when my giant polydactyl paws kneaded their blanket. I thought that meant I was loved.
Then everything went quiet.
I remember the cold first. Then the plastic. Then the way my own breath echoed inside the trash bag they put me in. I tried to push my big mitten paws through the darkness, but the bag just crinkled around me. I didn’t know where I was or why my people weren’t talking to me anymore. I kept waiting for someone to say my name.
When the bag finally opened, the winter air hit me like a punishment. I blinked into the light, confused, shivering, listening for footsteps I recognized. But all I heard were the colony cats—cats who knew how to survive outside, cats who stared at me like they could tell I didn’t belong there. I wasn’t built for the cold. I wasn’t built for being alone. I’m a house cat. A big one. A gentle one.
I sat there, twenty‑five pounds of hurt, wondering what I did wrong. Was I too big? Too needy? Too something? I kept looking back at the road, hoping they’d come get me. They never did.
A kind human eventually found me and said I wasn’t trash. They said I deserved warmth and safety and someone who wouldn’t give up on me. I’m trying to believe them. I still knead with my oversized paws when I’m happy. I still lean in for love like I’m starving for it. Maybe I am.
I don’t know why my old humans didn’t want me…