Adorable Cat Gets Returned By Its Hoomans For Being "Too Affectionate," Later Becomes The Hot Cake Everyone Wants To Adopt

"What if we don’t get him? What if he got too famous?'”

Maryjane

• Published in Animal Stories
• March 22, 2024

Is it even possible a "too affectionate" cat? One family returned their adopted cat for this reason.

Despite how bizarre that sounds, there is a happy ending to the story. Bruno, a buff and white tabby, rose to prominence at the Montville Animal Shelter in New Jersey as one of the most sought-after felines.

Following a social media post that went viral, adopters of Bruno emerged out of nowhere as this kitten rose to fame overnight. In fact, practically every cat in the shelter found a home, thanks to the story.

Bruno is a two-year-old cat, and here's how he became a hot cake. Word got out that he had been returned to the shelter because his mother thought he was "too affectionate" to work from home, and many were shocked.

Bruno had already been brought back to the shelter after a kid in the first adoptive family experienced an allergic reaction. However, Bruno was adopted by a mother and her child a few months later.

At that point, they discovered that Bruno had a bit too much of a loving velcro cat propensity. So they decided to return him back to the shelter.

Meet Bruno, the cat that is "too affectionate"

Lindsay Persico of the shelter described what transpired to the local media saying:

"The mother worked from home, and the cat would constantly headbutt her, making it difficult to get work done. The cat also insisted on sleeping in the young daughter’s bed, which resulted in the latter staying up late to play with the former. So a week later, Bruno was brought back to the shelter.”

It seemed that Bruno was obstructing workflow and being too cute

Persico added that Bruno fell into depression after returning to the shelter. Who could have imagined that someone had sent him back for being overly cordial?

That's why she chose to post his story on Facebook. Bruno went from being rejected to being the most sought-after cat after the post received hundreds of thousands of views!

Bruno was put up for adoption by almost fifty families; however, it turns out that he was previously adopted by another family before the post went viral.

The depressed Bruno

There was a spike in interest in the shelter because of all the exposure Bruno garnered.

"People were coming to our door to meet Bruno and we got almost all the cats in the store adopted in the meantime,” she said. “We only have two black cats left in our adoption room. So that was a good response as well,” Persico said.

Bruno enjoying some petting

Prior to Bruno becoming an internet sensation, Denville couple Catherine and Andrew had set their sights on adopting him. They had seen him online on the shelter's Petfinder page the day before the Facebook post and believed he might be the one.

They realized they needed to move quickly after seeing the post go viral the following day, so they acted quickly to adopt Bruno.

Bruno, the "too-affectionate" cat, sparked so much attention that an update had to be provided

“It was before the post blew up,” Andrew said of their application. “A few hours later [Catherine] sends me a screenshot of the post with like a thousand shares, freaking out like ‘What if we don’t get him? What if he got too famous?'”

Bruno loved the couple as soon as he met them

“He’s very outgoing when you first meet him,” Catherine said. “When we first picked him up he basically crawled into my neck … I think he was very excited to leave the shelter and be held again.”

Bruno in his forever home

Bruno felt a bit uneasy when he got home but,m his "too affectionate" side soon surfaced. His signature headbutts roused them from their sleep and this time, his people thought it was cute.

Better yet, while the cat adapted to his new life, Catherine worked from home because she adored him so much. Congratulations to Montville Animal Shelter New Jersey, Bruno, and his forever family!

Maryjane