Benji Benji & Abby Benji in his adorable Humane Society photo

One Friday morning we woke up to find that Rebel (aka Calvin), our 22 lb. black cat, was taken from us during the night from a blood clot in the heart or lung. He was only 9 years old and hadn't been sick at all. We were devastated. We have three sweet little female kitties (one black and two black and white), but I need to have a little boy. With a very heavy heart, I went to the Knox County Humane Society, where we had originally adopted Rebel. Upon walking into the room, I was greeted with 10 to 12 kitties crawling all over me giving love and kisses, this was THE best medicine for a broken heart!

Among those kitties, was a little black sweetheart by the name of Panther. He was very insistent about making his presence known by standing up among the other kitties and meowing his little head off at me. At his first opportunity, he jumped on my shoulder and covered my face with kisses as hard as he could over and over. I didn't find a new little boy, he had found me.. Panther needed a softer name to go with his very loving purr-sonality, so he has been renamed to Benji.

Benji loves to be cuddled when he's not hard at play and his gratitude is shown by holding my chin between his paws and kissing my nose and face. He adjusted almost immediately to his new home, 3 new sisters, tons of toys, kitty condo's, kitty beds and a new mom and dad that are totally enamored with him.

Even though Benji cannot replace our loss, he has definitely helped soften the blow. Incidentally, one of Benji's new sisters, Abby, is another sweetheart adopted from here.

We are firm believers in adopting from shelters and Knox County Humane Society is our favorite shelter (even though we live in a different county and it's a 45 minute drive one way). Not only do they take in and care for so many kitties, but workers and volunteers also spend time with them creating very people oriented purr-sonalities. The environment they create is unlike so many other shelters we've visited and is what keeps us coming back. :)

Roxanne Hileman