Curse of the Black Cat

Its funny how things work out. Just over a year ago, we got Sampson (Delila) and Coppellia after Sheeba's sad disappearance. Coppelia for Rhiannon to be mainly indoors and Sampson (Delila at the time) for Drew to be mainly outdoors to help Tigger with the outdoor mousing responsibilities.

But it turns out that Sampson preferred sleeping with Rhiannon and hanging out indoors and Coppellia preferred to be outdoors or hanging out with Drew.

In fact, I started to have my doubts about having 3 cats as Coppellia turned out to be a ferocious killer. And she killed a lot more than mice. She killed birds. Lots of birds. She killed all 5 starlings nesting around the garden. And started on robins.

We joke that the birds banded together and put out a hit and hired an owl. Because Coppellia is gone. Its been more than a week now. Too long to have been treed somewhere. And the liklihood of her being lost are slim. She is tatooed so if she was found by someone, we should have been called. There has not been the grief that there was for Sheeba and I feel a bit bad about that. Rhiannon who has long preferred Sampson, has only been upset about proprietorship. She doesn't 'own' Sampson and demanded for awhile (and probably will again) to 'own' another kitten.

But I am thinking that 2 cats is nice. Its a bit more manageable. And neither Sampson nor Tigger are that into killing birds which I was not entirely comfortable with... but both are great mousers. And Dean hasn't had allergic reactions to Sampson's dark grey fur. Maybe if Tigger and Sampson don't bond more and Sampson gets too lonely, I might consider another black female kitten....

But in the meantime, I am sad for Coppellia, our little black friend. I think Sampson misses her, too. I find him curled up in the places she used to curl up.

Coppellia was our 4th black kitten. Our first, Mina (pronouced meena) lasted only a few months. Then there was Jake who lasted exactly a year. Then Sheeba who lasted for 2 years and captured our hearts totally and now Coppellia who also lasted a year. Curse of the black cats!

Good bye Coppellia. Thank you for sharing your short life with us. God speed you on the next part of your journey!