When a woman found herself in a situation where she couldn’t care for three kittens, she wanted to make sure they were adopted, so she put out a call on Facebook. A man who wanted to use the kittens as bait in dogfights was the first to respond to her.

The woman removed the post straight away, but not before the appropriate individuals learned about the situation and offered their help.

Officer Andy Simmons of the Hillsborough Police Department in North Carolina had been involved in the rescue of a kitten from the wheel well of a vehicle a couple months back, and immediately decided to adopt him.

He named him Officer Monty Sprinkles, but unfortunately, Monty was in poor health from the very beginning, and ended up losing his uphill battle. Simmons put Monty’s ashes in his office and tried to move on, but always felt like a part of him was missing after that.

Officer Simmons found out about the three kittens in the Facebook post from his wife’s coworker, and he and his fellow officers took over the situation and helped find two of the kittens loving forever homes. After everything he had been through with Monty, Simmons decided this was a sign — and adopted the third kitten himself, naming her Mercy.

Officer Simmons and Mercy liked being with one other whenever they could from the beginning and Mercy helped Officer Simmons recover from the death of Monty. Mercy quickly developed a relationship with her new father and began to follow him around the home.

She is highly interested and has a dog’s attitude, according to Officer Simmons, who spoke to The Dodo. She follows me around like a herding dog and is curious about everything.

Mercy had become so close to Officer Simmons from the start that he decided to try bringing her to work with him. Suddenly, young Mercy was the newest member of the Hillsborough Police Department’s force.

Some of the department’s other officers first expressed some skepticism over the presence of a police cat.