Such a cute hamster!
When I was young, due to allergies, I couldn’t have a dog or cat. I don’t think we would have gotten a cat anyway, since I suspect my parents viewed cats more as pests than as pets, but we might have had a dog if I hadn’t been fairly allergic to them.
So, we had some pet goldfish, which died. I found a garter snake once; it freaked my mother out and so I didn’t get to keep it. Around 4th grade, I got a hamster as a pet — the first one a girl we named “Princess” ( hey, I was dumb as a child ). She lived about two or three years; after that was another one whose name I’ve forgotten, and my brother had a couple as well. They always died within a couple years, so if you’ve got kids I’m not sure they make great pets for kids since you have to pretty quickly explain mortality and loss, which isn’t terribly easy. In high school I had a hamster which wasn’t terribly nice; we went on a ski trip ( and I left it plenty of food ). When we got back, the hamster was ok, but that night it was really noisy in its cage with the biting and digging, and the next morning it was dead. It also didn’t have any food left in its cage, and to this day I feel bad because I probably should have been more careful to check on him the night before.
My last hamster I had as a kid was named Twinkles, or Twinkie ( hey, I was dumb as an adolescent too ). Twinkie was quite smart; I’d leave her cage unlocked, and at night she’d open the door, go out and explore the house ( mostly my room, since I’d try to keep the door closed ), then let herself back in each morning. On the occasions when she’d get out of my bedroom, after exploring the house for a while, she’d always come find us by going to the family room at the other end of the house and standing in the middle of the room.
I’m reminded of this because cuteoverload.com often has cute hamster pictures on it, and I’m reminded of this because I saw this cute hamster picture this morning. My hamsters were never smart enough to play with a GameBoy DS.
Picture by Xeni, I’m told.