About

A few years ago, my good friend Ann started to tell me I needed an animal. I said no. I had decided to lead a sober and simple life, concentrating on the intellectual stuff I am so interested in. Animals need care and company, and I felt I could not provide those without compromising my goals.

But my friend is nothing if persistent, and I started to think about it. I have always been an animal lover and the idea of having an animal again was certainly appealing. But which one?

My suite is full of electronics, and Japanese kimono. Not the type of stuff that is meant for dogs or cats or rabbits or ferrets or budgerigars to play in. Then I started thinking about rats. I used to have rats for many years, and they are great fun. However, rats are very social -and sociable- animals and I felt I could ill-afford the time they would need to be happy.

Finally, Ann came up with the solution. Why not take a hamster? It seemed ideal because hamsters take up even less space than rats, they are easy to care for and on top of that, they are solitary animals, not particularly social nor sociable. Essentially, the more I'd leave it alone, the happier the little critter would be.

And so it was decided. On 8 October 2008, I went to PJ'S PETS at Toronto's Yonge and Eglinton and became the proud father of a hamster and a shiny Habitrail OVO cage.

And now, I decided it was time to create a hamster site. I will talk about my hamsters, of course, but I will also talk about hamster care. Hamsters are one of the best studied rodents on the planet. Yet, there is a lot of disinformation out there and separating fact from fiction is not always that simple. Over time, I will do my best to provide objective articles about hamster care, so that your hamster (and mine) does not have to go through the horrors so many people impose of them.

Please feel free to leave any number of comments. I will censor them as little as possible, so that this can be a free exchange of ideas. I will, however, ruthlessly remove obvious spam.

I bid you welcome to the golden hamster!

Bart.

info@mesocricetus.com

1 comment: