During Mo’s ten or so years in our family, the escape-artist monkey child shared our home with a number of pets (dogs, cats, and — yes — hamsters).
Hamsters are, themselves, often proficient at escape, as we learned the hard way. The very first hamster for whom I ever assumed responsibility presented a challenge of impressive proportions. He actually belonged to kids I babysat, and I foolishly agreed to host him in my apartment when their family went on vacation. Of course, the very first night, the hamster got out….in my apartment building…creating immense fear of eviction should he turn up in another apartment (not to mention the fear of the kids’ heartbreak if he got lost on my watch). Well, I developed a very creative (and elaborate) plan to trap the little guy. Since I did not know which room he was in, I placed a small supply of hamster food in each room of the apartment, including closets. So that I could trail him to his hiding place, I sprinkled flour around each food offering. Then, to isolate him in whichever room he was hunkered down, I closed off all the doors by stuffing throw rugs under them. “Aha!” I thought. “No escape for you, little buddy.”
“Ha!” I am sure the hamster was thinking as he set out to foil my plans. The next morning I found that a) all the food was missing from every room, b) flour is not an effective hamster tracking material and makes a mess when it is dragged ALL over the floor, and c) hamsters are proficient at getting under doors by means of flattening out, devouring throw rugs, etc. Hence, no hamster! (Sigh…..) The kids were coming home that day, so I had to ‘fess up that the hamster was still at large. Their mom let them stay over, and the kids devised a very simple trap…a paper grocery bag beside the bed with a handful of hamster food inside. So, while sitting on the bed playing crazy 8s, we heard a rustle, and SUCCESS!! Got him! Whew! (Thank goodness for the simple resourcefulness of children.)
Years later when my son (the human one) was about 8 or 9, we had a series of hamsters. Unfortunately, they tended to escape their habitrail with regularity. And, also unfortunately, our little hound dog, Chickie Poo, had an affection for other animals in the house and wanted to carry them around whenever possible. (He actually did this with turtles as well as hamsters.) My poor son would hop out of bed in the morning and yell (sobbing), “Mom! He did it again!” because he had stepped on a soggy hamster on the throw rug beside his bed where Chickie would deposit it after inadvertently slobbering it to death.
A few of the hamsters were quite characters. One of them, all black, was named Spot, not because he had a spot but because he was a spot. And, amazingly, he learned to respond when his name was called. “Here, Spot!” and his little head would pop up from under the wood shavings in his habitrail. Well, of course, Spot (being a hamster), got out one day. He somehow avoided Chickie and did not meet the fate of accidental drowning. My son kept saying he thought Spot had fallen down the furnace register because he heard scratching. So…down on his belly with a flashlight, he removed the grate, aimed the light down the duct, and called, “Here, Spot!” Scritch scritch scritch — here came Spot clawing up the duct in the basement to get to the juncture that went straight up to us on the second floor!! Wow! Found him! But….how to get him out? Even Spot could not shinny up a slick metal tube. Our hamster rescue innovation involved taking an individual-portion cereal box, putting food inside, tying two jump ropes together, tying one end around the box, and lowering it down the duct. Spot would climb in, and we would oh-so-carefully pull the box up the duct. Each time the box got to about the first floor level, Spot would shift his weight and tumble out and back to the bottom. After a number of unsuccessful attempts, we went to the basement and dismantled that arm of the furnace to get him out. Thank goodness it was not the time of year that the furnace came on!
Pyramus and Thisbe, a pair of hamsters, were perhaps the most odd of the bunch. Indeed they seemed to be star-crossed lovers much like their namesakes. They had a beautiful habitrail network, but Thisbe, the female, apparently suffered from agoraphobia and would not leave the room that held the water bottle even for food. Pyramus, the male, catered to her every need and would tote the food to her. Apparently Pyramus himself had obsessive-compulsive disorder and methodically built an unusual wall-covering in Thisbe’s room. It was a lovely mosaic…..a row of corn, a row of seeds, a row of hamster poop; a row of corn, a row of seeds, a row of hamster poop…. What can I say? Three of my four children were monkeys. Why would my pets be normal?