Cuddly kitten was rescued from ‘bad situation.’ Now, he’s ‘living his best life’
CORRECTION: A North Carolina animal rescue on Sept. 26 corrected an earlier email it shared with McClatchy News. The kitten named Happy lost tissue around one of his eyes, according to Heart of the Foothills Animal Rescue.
The corrected story is below.
A kitten was saved from a “bad situation” — and now, he’s “living his best life.”
Happy, who had a much-needed eye surgery, is “thriving” after he was adopted in North Carolina.
“We are so glad that Happy found such a good family,” Heart of the Foothills Animal Rescue told McClatchy News in a Sept. 24 email. “They have loved him and have taken care of him better than we had ever hoped.”
The roughly 5-month-old kitten got a fresh start after he and his littermates were found living in a colony of feral cats. A woman captured the babies and started caring for them.
“The kittens were in very bad shape,” with eye issues and upper respiratory problems, according to the animal rescue based in Rutherfordton, a roughly 55-mile drive southeast from Asheville.
The woman took the kittens to a veterinarian, but she soon had to go out of town to help a relative. She reached out to the animal rescue, which took in the feline siblings and helped Happy get medicine for his inflamed eye.
“Happy is very sweet, loving, and cuddly,” the rescue wrote. “So the adopters fell in love with him and took him home.”
The rescue set up a foster-to-adopt arrangement so it could keep helping the little one with his medical care. Eventually, he needed to have scar tissue near one of his eyes removed.
“He grew healthy and strong despite having the surgery,” rescuers wrote in a Facebook post. “He was recently adopted and is doing amazing.”
Two of the kitten’s brothers — Dopey and Sneezy — had surgeries to remove their eyes. They previously got homes, making Happy the last one of the bunch to be matched with new owners.
This story was originally published September 25, 2025 at 2:14 PM.
