The Pet Life Cycle

My least favorite part of having pets is the end of the pet life cycle…or the dying part. It’s probably their least favorite part too.

With most pets, the life cycle is long. Most cats live upwards of 15+ years. I can tell you that having had a pet from infancy to death, 15 years isn’t long enough.

Hamsters, unlike cats, live about 2 years. Hamsters have a little internal egg timer, once they hit the elusive 2 year mark they are usually toes up in the bottom in the cage. Now a hamster isn’t a cat, he won’t purr and is most of the time afraid of the people who feed him. He spends most of his time burrowing in his cage or running on his plastic wheel. But he’s still cute and furry and has a sweet face. Finding your hammy dead is indeed a buzz kill. Let’s face it. Dead hammys are no fun.

As was the case Monday night, say oh, 9pm, when my son was in the feeding and watering phase of hammy care for the night. Only the hammy no longer needed feeding and watering as he had followed the white light to the green hammy wheel in the sky.

We found his little body curled up in his straw hanging thingy in his cage…the hammy version of a straw tire swing. My son tried to get him out of said straw hanging thingy, but hammy must have crossed the rainbow bridge quite a number of hours earlier. His body was a little, uh, stiff. There was no budging his body from that swing. Poor ham.

So we wrapped the whole tire swing/hammy combo in an old dishtowel and proceeded to commence burial at 9:00 at night. I was quite the site dressed in my blue doggie flannel jammies, holding a flashlight in one hand and towel wrapped dead hamster in the other while my son dug a grave along the back end of our lot line near the green space.

I feel bad. I do genuinely feel bad. He wasn’t the type of pet that gave unconditional love, but he was unconditionally cute and if he had lived 15 years, I would have taken care of him. Hammys don’t need much in terms of care. On the pet scale – they are pretty low maintenance.

Rest in peace little ham. He really did have the cutest little hamster face.