From the first stray cat I brought home to the summers I spent with the Metro Toronto Zoo Crew, I’ve always been an animal lover.
One of my first memories of childhood is my dad teaching me how to approach and pat a dog properly: talk to it, approach slowly and carefully, offer your hand up for a sniff, and then wait for the dog to make the next move. If the next move is a lick or a bow, you’re in.
I still have a pretty solid technique, and am on good terms with the dogs that wander Function Junction and Creekside.
Liking animals has gotten me into trouble a few times.
Once while on a visit to a farm, I was chased down by a jealous billy goat who thought I was getting a little too close to the missus. I had to dive over a wood fence to escape, tearing up my knees and elbows in the process.
Another time I was playing with a black capuchian monkey in a pet store, when he suddenly grabbed my finger and bit into it – I still have two tiny scars on my pinky where his teeth went in. Not a big deal really, but after watching the movie Outbreak, I wondered how close I came to contracting Canada’s first case of the Ebola virus.
Once while tree planting, I thought I saw a female moose in my land and had my first wild run-in with a grizzly bear while trying to get a closer look. It didn’t do anything, but I had stupidly let it know I was nearby and spent the rest of the day looking over my shoulder and jumping every time I heard a sound.
I felt so confident walking by a male elk under a streetlight in Banff one night that I inadvertently walked into a group of four sleeping males. I almost tripped over one of them when a porch light with a motion detector turned on, and startled the little herd to its feet. I found myself surrounded by a forest of antlers and more than two tons of wild animal.
I’ve been barked and growled at over the years. I’ve been bitten, scratched, pecked, pushed, kicked, spat on and sprayed with some horrible things, but these run-ins haven’t diminished my love of animals in the slightest.
One of these days I’m getting a dog. As soon as I can afford a car, in fact, because ultimately I’ll want to bring him or her with me to work because I keep odd hours and don’t want to leave my dog alone in the house all day. I’d also like to be a little more settled – dogs, regardless what some owners might think, are a big responsibility.
Cats are a lot more independent than dogs, but unfortunately I’m deathly allergic. I grew up in a house with four cats and had no problems until I came home from university one semester only to wake up one morning with a rash, red eyes, runny nose and shortness of breath.
To fill the void between the cats I used to have and the dog I hope to one day own, I went out in December and purchased a two-level cage and a pair of male hamsters.
One of them was shy in the beginning, so my girlfriend named him Shiloh – the Neil Diamond song of the same name is just a happy coincidence. I named the cuter and fatter of the two hamsters Huckleberry.
Of all the animals I’ve cared for in my life, and I did some amazing things with the Zoo Crew, I’ve never looked after any kind of a rodent.
I read everything I could find about hamsters on the Internet, and we tried to make a happy home for them.
We bought them a couple of hamster balls so they could run around the house and get some exercise. It’s also pretty entertaining for us.
We filled their cage with scraps of old T-shirts to make nests, built them little houses out of cardboard to hide in, and filled one end of the top level with tree branches to climb around on and chew.
We recently put an addition onto their cage, attaching a vacuum tube from the top door to a clear plastic bin that was warmer and quieter for the hamsters and ourselves.
For a while there, things were going great, and we were a happy family. If they don’t get enough exercise they make noises all night, and they eat enough seed to feed 50 birds, but we were adjusting.
And then they started to escape.
One thing you should know about hamsters is that they are very industrious when they want to be and their teeth are extremely sharp. Over about two weeks they gnawed about 10 different holes in the top of the plastic container by pushing all of those materials we gave them to play with into a big pile so they could reach the roof. We put books on top of the holes to slow them down, but they just nibbled through the pages and pushed them off to the side.
Sometimes I feel a bit like Colonel Klink trying to thwart one of Hogan’s endless escape attempts, but I really can’t say I blame the hamsters – if I were kept in a cage all day, I’d be gnawing my way out, too.
I recently attached some wire screen to the top of the cage, and that seems to have slowed them down a little.
Another issue I didn’t see coming was the fact that my little boys – they were about six months old when we bought them – grew up into little men.
Their surprisingly large testicles dropped, testosterone production began in earnest, and suddenly they were fighting. Shy little Shiloh turned into a jerk overnight, and now he attacks Huckleberry at least once a day.
Both hamsters have been injured in these fights, with their sharp buckteeth leaving little puncture wounds in one another. Now we have to think seriously about separating the boys, which means getting another cage, more vacuum tubing, and entertaining two bored and possibly lonely hamsters.
We could also solve the problem medically, but while neutering is possible it’s not recommended – unlike a dog, you can’t just stick a little lampshade over the hamsters head and trust him not to bite at the stitches. Plus, it’s prohibitively expensive for what is essentially a $10 pet that will only live a maximum of three to four years anyway.
Living things are never predictable and caring for them is a large responsibility, no matter how small they might be.
And if I can’t figure out a way to keep these hamsters safe and happy, maybe I have no business owning a dog, much less raising a child of my own someday.
They may not realize it, but my hamsters are part of an experiment. For my sake – and theirs – I hope it’s a success.
