So happy to hear the good news! 
Please give Toby an extra big hug and scritch from me and my kitties.
Wallet
A local stray adopted my family. We call him, “Kevin”. Most of the time, his tummy brings him home. But, it never surprises me when he takes off for a day or so. The amusing thing is where he goes…
You see, when he returns after being gone a while, he always smells like smoke. We thought that, perhaps, he has a second family … who have a fireplace.
It wasn’t until several years of this had passed that we discovered that he’s spending his time on the ROOF of a neighbor’s house. They do have a fireplace, but he doesn’t go in the house; he sits next to the chimney. I guess it’s warm?!?
It’s completely inexplicable. He’s a cat & living his life to the fullest.
I love this story, DrForrester. Cats are pretty inexplicable. My little girl cat sleeps up on top of the tallest kitchen cabinet: up on the counter, up on the refrigerator, up on the lower cabinet, up to the top. Lie down so only ears show. Why? Like you, I guess it’s because it’s warm. Or maybe because her brother is too clumsy to get up there. I can hear her saying “nyah nyah dummy”.
It was a cold, dark early morning in late October, ten years ago. My 92-year-old mother had fallen in the bathroom. As the EMTs were preparing her for the ambulance, they had the front door propped open. Nobody noticed that my 18-year old indoor cat had walked out the door. I spent the entire day in the hospital, and didn’t notice the cat was missing until that night.
Two days later my mother had passed away. I was busy making funeral arrangements, and dealing with the myriad business of her passing. In whatever time I could spare, I searched the immediate neighborhood for the cat, thinking that because of his age he couldn’t have gone far.
After the funeral, I finally had time to devote to the missing cat. I put up posters around the immediate few blocks, still thinking he couldn’t have gone far. I got several responses, all from one direction, so I put up more posters in that area. I got a few more responses, farther in that direction, so I put up more posters in that direction. Then I walked up and down the streets in that area, searching and calling his name. I looked in people’s back yards, anywhere he may be hiding. I called the city pound; they hadn’t found a cat of his description. Now it was November, and the nights were cold and rainy. I was seriously worried. Not only was the cat very old, but he was declawed, so he couldn’t catch food or defend himself.
Then, after 18 days, I received a call, saying my cat was sitting in the person’s driveway. It was from a house over a mile away, and I hurried there. Sure enough, there he was. When he saw me, he seemed to be saying, “What the hell took you so long?” I picked him up, and immediately noticed how light and bony he felt; he had lost a great deal of his body weight. I rushed him to the vet, and she said that, except for being malnourished and dehydrated, he was surprisingly healthy. I took him home and nursed him back to health. He lived to be 20.
Here’s to happy endings!
I’m glad he came home, Alice.
When I was little, we had a cat named Lightning, and a few months after we moved to our new house, we acquired a stray kitten named Cinnamon that had been tossed out of a moving car. The two girls did not get along very well.
One day Lightning got out. This was really odd, because unlike Cinnamon who was indoor/outdoor, Lightning had been an indoor cat for all 14 years of her life. We called around to shelters and vets offices, but no one was very hopeful that an elderly indoor cat would survive the wild very long 
A week after our old girl went missing, Cinnamon came meowing at the door, so we let her in. Less than fifteen minutes later, we heard more meowing, and lo and behold, there was Lightning on the stoop! We’ve long since theorized that Lightning recognized her young housemate and slowly followed the kitten home.
Lightning was in good spirits and seemed in good health. She did, however, smell like cigar smoke, so it seems likely that she found someone to look after her during her adventure. I hope they weren’t too sad to lose her.
So glad he came home! I came in to tell you about my sister’s cat, who slipped out one day and was just gone. I had been the one who had let her out…and I called in to work and sent the day searching fr her. We aren’t out in the country, but there’s a patch of wooded area near us. I beat the damn bushes looking for that damn cat! And she was …nowhere. She’s not the friendliest of kitties, and I don’t doubt that she saw me searching and just didn’t care.
After about a week, putting out tasty food that got eaten by something, and calling and trying to coax her home, I had given up hope. And then the little brat turned up on the deck, meowing to be let in!
We have a six foot no-climb fence around the property. It has big, powerline pole stalls ever few hundred feet
One day, a cat we had for a short time jumped up on the stall rail and looked over into the expanse. I said, “Well, that’s it for that cat” He jumped over to the dark side and that was the last we ever saw of him.
And then there is Tommo…