Cookie and the Ratón Pérez

Cookie is a pure black cat with a wonderful disposition. We found her when she was a day old in a hole in the road with her brother. We brought them home and gave them to a strange little dog someone had abandoned that we had taken in a few weeks before. The dog looked like a fox and mothered everything she found. She was still a puppy herself but was already caring for and nursing two baby rabbits. The kittens took to her with no trouble and grew to be strong. I don’t think any of them knew what type of animal they were. We found a home for Cookie's brother and we kept Cookie. Our children were very young then and dressed her up in dolls clothes, pushed her in a pram and even sat on her by accident from time to time. She never scratched and just put up with every thing. She followed them everywhere.

I don’t know what they have in other countries, in USA we have a tooth fairy, and here in Spain they have a mouse called the Ratón Pérez. When you lose a tooth you put it on the windowsill at night and the Ratón will change it for money. Ever since our daughter Ami was old enough to have a tooth fall out and learn about the Ratón she was very frightened that Cookie would catch the poor little mouse and eat it. You see Cookie was a very good hunter and she would always bring her catch home to show us first, and only then she would eat the whole thing, as it was meant to be in nature. It makes me sad to see a cat catch a bird, lizard, rabbit and the like but I know that is how it was meant to be in the wild, as long as they eat their prey and not just play with it and then leave it on the floor. It is a natural instinct.

When Ami lost her first tooth we put it in the window, as we should, and in the morning we heard shrieks and crying as she came running into our room. She held in her hand a large dead tree rat. She was crying so hard about what she had always feared but she did eventually say, “well at least he left the money first”. Lenox had of course snuck in during the night and switched the tooth for a coin. We tried to explain to her that the Ratón was much more important than the money because he had so many more children to see and then we told her that the poor dead creature wasn’t the Ratón Pérez after all, but a tree rat that Cookie had brought home to show her. So it all had a happy ending, except for the rat of course, but I’m not sure Ami ever quite got the moral of the story.
(Bottom Picture: Cleo)