And The Two Became One...

We have officially joined the ranks of families with a missing hamster. We, like several of you, got two hamsters this summer when my boys completed the reading program at the library. Of course my boys were thrilled and quickly claimed one as their own and named them Harry and Ralph. And yes, they actually were two boys!! Harry had already chewed himself out of the cardboard box that the pet store put him in before we got home. Thankfully we had a plastic hamster ball that we quickly transferred him to.

So, needless to say, Harry has been trying to escape ever since we bought him. There have been at least two occasions where we have to hurriedly grab Harry before he squeezed under an arm when changing food or jumped out of our hand when transferring him to the ball to clean the cage. Oh by the way, he bit too!! Not my favorite one anyway.

Well, last Thursday was "clean out cage" day at our house. We cleaned out the whole thing and replaced BOTH hamsters in the cage safe and sound when we were done. That evening I looked in the cage and did not see Harry! I didn't worry much because they bury themselves under the cedar to sleep. Well, we left for camping early Friday morning for the weekend. When we got home we were too busy unpacking to check on them. Ethan finally looked in the cage Sunday night and said he still could not see Harry. So, Steve had the "man" job of digging around in the cage. Well, after a few minutes of digging, no Harry. We examined the cage carefully and found no way that he could escape but there was no sign of him.

So, now we are just waiting for the aftermath of the lost hamster. Thankfully my boys are handling this very well. But for now, we are going to be happy with just one hamster.