A sad day at the Mouse House

Siren. 2002-September 23, 2008

Siren showed up on our doorstep, rather the back patio, sometime during the late spring or early summer of 2002. Siren was skinny, emancipated, nothing but skin and bones. He decided to make his last stand in our back yard. Katie Caggiano, our last employee and confessed "cat hater", could not stand the howls and siren screams (hence his name) that came from his mouth and decided to feed him outside. We had recently been given another cat named Shadow, a beautiful black long-haired part Persian but dumb as a board, who constantly tortured Katie at work. This is just what Katie wanted - another cat at work!! Katie, however, fell in love with this cat and we all nursed him back to health. For the next six years this cat, who had no chance of survival, lived in and out of The Mouse House and even taught Shadow how to beg and scream for food and Pounce. Siren was a loving friendly cat, my lap cat, who knew how lucky he was.

Last night I tried to get Siren to come in, but he was more interested in chasing a small frog in the driveway (I think the frog got away). He often stayed out all night and crashed inside during the day. I had noticed over the past few weeks that he wasn't as active as before. He had gotten a clean bill of health from the Vet except for a front tooth that would probably come out naturally. Siren never showed any signs of pain around the mouth. This morning I heard my front doorbell ring at 7:10AM. When I investigated I saw that I left the "open but in workshop" sign on the door and thought a kid rang the bell for a laugh. As I was walking to the back door I heard a strange sound and discovered my neighbor with a shovel trying gingerly to pick up Siren and placed him in a box. He was the one that rang my bell. Siren looked peacefully asleep, but there was a puddle of blood near his head. I do not know what happened; to say the least I was heartbroken.

Siren was buried beneath this wonderful portion of a tree in a garden at the rear of my lot that Susan and I found several months ago after a bad thunderstorm. We kept it untreated so it could decay naturally. The beautiful decaying tree now has company.