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Gauguin, thanks for welcome. I have never had hamsters, nor gerbils, but we used to have guinea pigs. My husband was a pharmacology student, but he quit because he did not want to do awful things to rats. Before he quit, he rescued a couple of guinea pigs, Nibble and Munch, one male, one female, and a cat, Jerome. Poor Jerome threw himself out the second story window one weekend while we were in Biloxi visiting my grandmother, but Nibble and Munch prospered, and had many families. My husband, at my behest, built the guinea pigs a three-story high-rise guinea pig cage, with ramps, and exercise cages, and so on. Occasionally, we would let them, and their little families, out, for a romp, and they would circle the living room, around and around, endless circles, under and behind the furniture, skirting the walls, in a little herd, going, "Week-week-week-week-week," and grunting and chuffling. The cutest thing that guinea pigs do is stott, which is, as far as I know, unique to guinea pigs, and means springing up and down stiffly on all fours when surprised, or excited. We gave away or sold, all the children, except two sisters, Fudge Ripple (black-and-white) and Neapolitan (black-white-and-red), and after Nibble and Munch died of old age, they survived for quite a long time. We have pictures of Benjamin, our older, on all fours in diapers, looking with surprise at Neapolitan, through the chicken wire of the cage. |
