The Great Hamster Chase

I am a sucker. I will be the first to admit that.

Recently my daughter wanted a hamster. She talked about nothing else for weeks. So I finally gave in and took her to the pet store to pick out a little furry rodent. And cage. And rodent igloo. And running ball. And bedding. And food. And....and.....and....  It was a cute little thing, and once again - I'm a sucker. My daughter named it Cookie Dough and we brought her home, put her cage together and helped her to settle into her new surroundings. She seemed content, but little did we know that Cookie Dough is a master escape artist.

A little less than 48 hours later, I discovered that Cookie Dough had made a break for it when one of her crawling tubes was not properly secured. How the little sucker was able to push the tube completely loose and off of the cage is still a mystery. We weren't even sure how long the fuzz ball had been missing. For hours we scoured my daughter's bedroom. We tore apart her bed, her nightstand, the dresser, the boxes of toys. Dumped out her basket of shoes and another basket of stuffed animals. We searched her closet, then did it all again. And again.  Then we moved on to our son's room, then the bathroom and finally my room. We searched every nook and cranny, then took our search downstairs. Could a rodent the size of a chicken nugget really make its way down a flight of stairs? We weren't sure, but with a child in hysterics, we were going to keep searching. That is when we noticed that one of our dogs was looking rather satisfied. Guilty even. This is the canine that likes to bring us "presents" and leave them at the door. We have been blessed with gifts of mice, birds, frogs, moles (lots of moles) and the occasional groundhog (I kid you not!). This is also the same dog that had not taken her eyes off of Cookie Dough since we brought her home. Taps began playing in my head. And as the realization of what had occurred began to sink in with my daughter, her wailing increased ten-fold. Cookie Dough had come to our family as a pet and ended up as a midday snack.

My husband and I felt so bad, that we (yes, we both are suckers) went out and bought another fuzzy chicken nugget. Cookie Dough 2. We brought her home and got her settled into her predecessor's cage, making sure that everything was securely connected (we wanted to keep our dog on a strict dog-food-only diet!).

That night, our still distraught daughter decided to sleep in our bed. She had not quite warmed up to Cookie Dough 2 yet. So we all settled in: my husband, my daughter, me, and two of our dogs who sleep under our bed. At 3:00 am we hear scratching under our bed and one dog (the gracious present giver) jumps up bumping her head on the bed rails. My husband and I sit bolt upright. Could it be? No, it was impossible. But we were going to check to be sure. As my husband escorts (ok, throws) the dog out of the room (to be on the safe side) I peer under the bed. Actually, I was laid out flat on my belly with a flashlight. There under the bed I see a dust ball with feet fly past our Chi-weenie (who is completely oblivious and just wants to go back to sleep). For the next hour we chase, corner, search, listen, and build baracades. We look like we are reenacting an episode of the Three Stooges. Our daughter is sitting on the bed shouting instructions "She went that way! Over there!). Cookie Dough certainly is a sneaky one, not to mention lightening fast! We trap her under the bed and she bolts for the nightstand. We block her exits and she slips past anyway leaving a blazing tail towards the chest-of-drawers. She bolts out from the back and runs behind a bookcase. I finally have her cornered when she decides to try to make another break for it and runs up inside a roll of wrapping paper. There is no escaping now! Once I finally have her and our daughter is rejoicing, we have to figure out what to do with her. Cookie Dough 2 has taken up residence in her cage, and we quickly learned that hamsters that were not raised together cannot bunk together. Lucky for me, we had a spare found-at-a-yard sale cage that my daughter had initially refused to use because of the color. By 4:00 am we were the proud owners of two Cookie Doughs in two cages. And life just got more complicated!

Cookie Dough 1 has since gone on to escape two more times. The first of which, she was found and captured behind the couch in the living room. The second time, however, she actually did not escape so much as was helped out of her "holding pen" (a big box with some shavings where we put her when we are cleaning her cage). Yes, she was helped out. By our dog. Who had her in her mouth. I did mention she hadn't taken her eyes off of the fur ball. My son was able to get the dog to drop her, then with another Stooges reenactment, we caught her once more.

Cookie Dough 1

Chloe (the gift giver) just waiting for opportunity to strike - again

Anyone want a little furry chicken nugget?

Bren