missing hamster

Well, the hamster is missing- again. I am feeling very tired over missing hamsters. Weary. My sister and I were recounting just a couple of weeks ago the different hamsters that we had when we were growing up and which ones went missing or met untimely ends. My second hamster Inle (any Watership Down fans?), after my first very-long-lived hamster Garfield who died at age 4 of some sort of eye abscess, went off to live with the mice at one point. We trapped her and caught her. She just never adjusted to cage life. One of Ellen's hamster, Sunshine, escaped from her cage (truth be known, it was a styrofoam cooler I used to fly her? or did we drive? to Ohio from Wisconsin. She used her sharp little teeth to gnaw her way out.) and was caught by a large dog named Wimpy (dog to my Dad's second wife, Debbie). They told me that she must have died of a heart attack, although now that I think about it, I am not sure how they knew that at the time. I seem to remember-yes!- a third hamster, Ellen's again, that we found several months after she/ he had gone missing. We found said hamster, whose name I have forgotten (Ellen's third and I believe last hamster), in the heater vent in the basement when it was being cleaned out for the winter.

That brings us to now. Here I am, an adult now, still looking for lost hamsters. Our first hamster, Fluffy, escaped a couple of times and was found, once behind a bookcase in a nest of ripped up carpeting she had prepared for herself over night. She escaped several times and went behind the couch, etc until finally one night she stood on her little house in her cage and pushed UP. She pushed the lid off of the cage and climbed out. We had actually seen her practicing this move and thought it very optimistic of her. Cute. Wow, check out what the hamster is doing... I usually stored a large bag of hamster food on top so that she could not move the lid up far enough to escape. For some reason I did not have something weighing it down that night and she escaped.

It was so sad when she escaped because she found her way out to the garage and eventually into the crawl space below via the only little hole behind the heater, far back in the corner. I actually caught her once in a trap I set but the box was not strong enough to hold her (remember she had been lifting weights...) and she got out and ran off again. For a few days she would come out and get almonds I baited her with. I have to believe she got caught down in the hole and wasn't able to get out. We like to believe she found her way outside to freedom but I have to admit, the chances were slim. Several months later there was a severe smell coming from under the house where the heating vents (again!) had broken and filled with water. The fix-it-guy who came over surmised she might have gotten into the vents looking for water and died there. He didn't believe there was any way out of the crawl space but up. Unfortunately it was lined with plastic, not dirt and grasses like I imagined. If anyone WAS going to get out of a crawl space in another way, it would be a hamster. They are, as I have been told, masters of escape.

And that brings us to the cats. Generally, one of our cats leads us to the escaped hamster. You know, you walk into a room and a cat is sitting staring intently but sort of relaxed too, at an undetermined spot. Magoo is the best at this and you know something is up with the hamster. Ah ha! You have found the spot. All you need to do now is move whichever piece of furniture is under or around the cat and usually cat-marks-the-spot, you have a hamster, usually dozing away or grooming or just relaxing. So on the one hand, you want the cat to help you find the hamster and then again on the other hand, you don't. Because remember, cats generally eat hamsters. So they can be helpful in some ways and not so helpful in others.

This hamster, Fluffy (Yes, it is the same name but not the same hamster. This hamster is a male teddy bear hamster and was named Nibbles at the humane society. I did pause at that but the kids really took to him. The other hamster was a regular female hamster whose name was Marshmallow at the humane society. Completely different except that they both like to escape.) has escaped a few times but it has generally been to very controlled spaces, like inside the couch or just over by the futon. Today was different. He was sitting with Eva and had been out with her for a while and then she set him down to sit in front of the fan and a couple of seconds later he had wandered off and quickly at that. We turned the room upside down, closed all doors to places like OUTDOORS and the GARAGE and then picked up furniture, toys, cleared a space and finally brought out his cage, baited it with a banana and set it in the middle of the living room floor in the hopes that he will get hungry and come out for food. Again, we are hoping for some help from the cats, but not too much help, if you know what I mean. I will do my best to keep them very well fed tonight (as if they aren't already!).

What I told the kids earlier is that when a hamster escapes during the day time, the most likely scenario is that he has gone to find some place to sleep. We hope he is right around here this very minute, behind a bookcase or in a little crevice that looks too small from our eyes to fit him, just sleeping away. We hope that when he gets hungry he will come out to find the banana. We hope that Magoo will point the way. We hope he is old and loves us enough to not take off on his own. I have to admit, it is a bit galling to think of him sleeping nearby while all of us are quite disturbed by his escape. Eva is just beside herself and has gone to "imagine what life will be like without Fluffy ". Samuel, of course, is "never going to let Eva forget that she lost Fluffy". As for myself, I am feeling very weary and tired, tired and weary, about lost hamsters right now and really just hope this one comes back.