In a moment of weakness sometime after the cats, Misty and Patches, & the dog, Blackie, had passed on to the
Rainbow Bridge, I agreed to let our children have “pets of their own”. Sylvia assured me that it would be good for them to learn responsibility
caring for a pet and they really missed the animals that had been a part of their early lives. A school friend of my daughters told her about his hamsters litter and she
was sure that a hamster was the pet for her. After seeing the little furballs, my son agreed and so they came home with what we had been assured were two little males that
could share a cage and the kids could share the job of cleaning, feeding, etc. They were named “Nuzzle” (daughters’) and “Speedy” (sons’) by their proud new owners and
they got along really well; a little too well as it turned out! We were awakened one morning by the screams of my daughter to “come quick, something’s wrong with Nuzzle”.
It turns out that Nuzzle was really a female and Speedy lived up to his name for what we found in the cage was a squirming mass of flesh colored baby hamsters crawling
all over their mother. Speedy was banished to a cage of his own and Nuzzle set about the task of caring for her new brood. Out of the dozen born, nine survived and we faced
the task of finding homes for them quickly unless we planned on going into the hamster breeding business. Each of the kids kept one so the parents wouldn’t be lonely (sigh).
“Speedy Jr.” joined his dad and “Teeny” took up residence with her mom. Relatives adopted two others and the rest went to the local pet store. I must admit that these lively
little critters gave us all many hours of pleasure if you didn’t mind dodging hamster balls as you crossed the family room to sit and watch television! |