Tombi, an orange tabby cat who became known as the classroom cat in a primary school in Turkey's Izmir province has returned to his 33 classmates on Thursday after a brief goodbye.
Little Tombi was forced to leave the school last week after a parent of one of the students lodged a complaint against the cat being in the classroom and posing an allergy risk.
Leaving behind heartbroken students, Tombi was adopted by another parent Nilay Coşardemir, but quickly started losing weight while in the household, which worried its new owner. Tombi was then moved to a new temporary home, class teacher Özlem Pınar Ivaşçu's home, who also looked after three other cats. Unfortunately, they didn't get along and Tombi grew unhappier each day.
Students were unhappy following the incident and their parents requested to bring Tombi back to the classroom.
After hearing about Tombi's story, Ömer Yahşi, the Provincial Director of National Education in Izmir, launched an investigation to see whether the cat actually posed a health risk to the students, and ordered Tombi to be taken back to the classroom to stay with his classmates.
The class seemed to be happy with the situation and the teacher reported that the students were more enthusiastic to come to school than ever before.
"Tombi really missed the class. The cat is sleeping in its same place again. The students are very happy," she added.
