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January 22, 2007
The life, death, and death of Charles the Hamster
Sometimes, you see a bit of news that brings back a long forgotten memory. Here's one - and I'm certain this hunter never went through Marine Corps rifle training.
Wildlife officials said the feathered Lazarus had been shot by a hunter and put into his refrigerator for two days. That's when the hunter's wife opened the door and the duck lifted his head, giving her a scare.The man's wife "was going to check on the refrigerator because it hadn't been working right and when she opened the door, it looked up at her," said Laina Whipple, a receptionist at Killearn Animal Hospital. "She freaked out and told the daughter to take it to the hospital right then and there."
The hospital's staff had the daughter take the 1-pound female ring-neck to Goose Creek Wildlife Sanctuary, where it has been treated since Tuesday for wounds to its wing and leg.
Sanctuary veterinarian David Hale said it has about a 75 percent chance of survival, but probably will not ever be well enough to be released back into the wild.
He said the duck, which has a low metabolism, could have survived in a big enough refrigerator, especially if the door was opened and closed several times.
And here's the memory that should have stayed repressed.
From the time he was a small boy, my son had lobbied for a dog. We'd tried birds and fish, but his response was always along the lines of "Fish are fun, but you can't take them out and play with them." I knew he yearned for a puppy but I wasn't ready to add that much responsibility to our lives. So, I agreed to a step up - this time to a warm-blooded pet (no snakes for this mom). Before I could change my mind, he suggested a haircut, knowing that a pet store was conveniently located right next door. We put our names on the list and wandered over. The back wall contained a number of cages with animals I'd heard of but never paid much attention to before. Mice, rats, hamsters, and guinea pigs . . . which to choose?
I immediately ruled out mice and rats. The guinea pigs were interesting but my son was drawn to the Teddy Bear Hamsters. These little guys were lively and seemed to have a bit of personality. After talking with the sales clerk, I gave my permission for our first pet mammal. Shane picked out a cute little guy with brown and white fur and immediately named him Charles. A real bargain at $4.95
The sales clerk assured us that the hamster would be happy in the ten-gallon aquarium we had recently emptied but suggested a few essential accessories. By the time the cart was full, our bargain pet was rapidly climbing the economic scale, but no matter. He was small and my son was ecstatic. He rode home in a cardboard box on my son's lap - until he showed his proclivity for escape by chewing through the bottom. We coaxed him out from under the car seat and rushed home to set up the aquarium. That evening we sat in rapt attention as Charles explored his new home for possible escape routes. Certainly better than TV.
The next morning, we realized that we should have weighted the screen cover. Charles had gone over the wall. Shane found him hiding in a corner of my closet and replaced him in his cage. We watched him immediately climb his water bottle and try for escape number two. Obviously this was a strong willed animal.
The next week, while shopping at Wal-Mart, we discovered hamster modular living units. Did our hamster need a second story for his new home? Proportionately, this rodent had far more square footage than we did in our home. No matter, we selected a modular unit designed to stand alone or fit on top of an aquarium, complete with a second exercise wheel, sky spinner, and hideaway cube. A tube extended through the floor into the aquarium below . . . kind of like an inside out fireman's pole. We added an accessory pack of modular tubes and a Hamster Ball for safe excursions out. By this time, I'd spent more making our hamster's home habitable than our own, at least in the recent past. Our ungrateful hamster didn't seem to care. His mission in life was to escape and he did. Frequently. It is somewhat humbling to be outsmarted by a hamster. Over the three years of his life, he never stopped trying to escape although eventually, once free, he would walk down the hall instead of running. This made it considerably easier to capture him.
From our book on hamster care, we knew that the normal life span of a hamster is about three years. Charles spent most of his first 2.5 years climbing up and down between his first floor apartment and the aquarium basement, endlessly looking for a way out. During the Christmas holidays one year, we were careful to leave plenty of food and water for him, but were gone more than we were home . . . and so our furnace was turned way down. One day I noticed that he had not changed position for at least two days. Finding him stiff and cold, I gently tried to prepare my son for his first real loss. We'd flushed a few goldfish, but Charles was a living, breathing mammal who had cuddled in his hand. After a few tears, we prepared a small cardboard box with a Kleenex lining. Since the ground outside was frozen, I placed the box in my refrigerator to await a proper burial on his grandfather's farm.
Two days later, my son opened the refrigerator door, slammed it shut and yelled at me, "Whiskers! I see whiskers!!" I opened the door, moved the orange juice, and there sat Charles, perched on top of my leftover Christmas ham and looking very pleased with himself. He had ignored the broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower and stuff we normally fed him. Instead, he had nibbled on the butter, chocolate chip cookie dough, and had eaten quite a bit of the ham. Shane marveled, "He came back! And he came back as a carnivore!"
We learned that hamsters hibernate in low temperatures. And, we made really, really sure he was dead before we removed him from his cage the next time he died.
Posted by Deb at January 22, 2007 11:28 AM
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