Cassie and the Canary

 

So I have a story to tell you today.  We have a cat.  Her full name is Cassie Tuna (pronounced in true 3 year old little girl fashion as Cathy Tuna) but we just call her Cassie.  She is a sweet, petite little thing weighing in at about 7-8 pounds and is a striped tabby with beautiful gold rings around her eyes.

We didn't choose to have a cat.  After the cat I had for 11 years (before I had Pete!) died, we decided that his allergies made having a cat not really worth it for him.  So we didn't get another one.  Oh we had offers for kittens over the years, but always had to say no, no matter how cute they were.  One winter we had a stray cat have her kittens in our garage, and we let them stay.  They never let us get near them, but at least they were warm.  Once in a while we would find evidence that one of them had gotten somehow from the garage into the house, but never near us.  This is relevant because we never could figure out how those cats got from the garage into the house.

One night about 5 years ago in the middle of the night Amanda and Rachael came panicking into our room!  "Dad!  Someone is playing the piano and no one is there!"  Pete got up and investigated and found nothing and no one.  Ernie, our ever-vigilant watchdog, had not notified us of anything and we all decided maybe they had dreamed something.

The next night...the same thing!

The next night after that Rachael woke up screaming!  Pete ran downstairs and he found...laughing girls and a cat.  Apparently little half-grown Cassie had used whatever entry the other cats had found (was she maybe related to them from a couple years before?) and after a couple of forays into the house the previous two nights tiptoeing across the piano keys, she had decided to have a little cuddle with Rachael in her nice warm bed while she slept.

We tossed her out the door assuming she belonged to someone since she was clearly not feral.  She was back the following night.  Again.  And again she came back.  It became clear that we had two, and only two choices.  Either take her to the shelter, or keep her.  Rachael was not having allergy problems and neither was Pete so...Cassie was named and stayed.

One day Jake and David found her first *gift*.  If you have ever had a cat you know that they take providing for their family very seriously.  She had brought mouse to them and literally tossed it, live, to them while they were in their room.  I explained to them that this was her being affectionate and since we have always struggled with a mouse problem in this house it was a great thing that she was dealing with them!  I told them how a cat would leave gifts for her family and relayed some anecdotes of gifts I have received over the years.

Some months before Jake, Rachael and David had spent a whole summer earning money for a gift for me.  A beautiful yellow singing canary.  He lived in a cage in our family room on a shelf.  The very next day after telling Jake and David about her gift of the mouse, Jake came upstairs.  On his face was a look of horror and dismay, and a little grief.  In his hand my completely intact and bloodless, yet no less dead, beautiful pet canary.  Cassie had given Jake my bird as a gift in his shoe.

It was hard to be too mad at her.