Meet our non-Siberians!
"Karbon" is our Shaded-Silver Persian.
Silver-Storm Karbon Kopy O'Ziemabora
~ bred by Darlene Laird & Katherine Harris
And then there is "Kohl", our black & white Persian.
Purrmunn's Kohl Miner o'Ziemabora
~ bred by Tedd Munn
And "Blanca", the old granny cat we adopted from The Humane Society about 9 years ago as an adult cat.
The Hamsters.
"Nick" and "Aaron" are dwarf hamsters and special pets belonging to my daughter. Sadly, both of them went to the big hamster wheel in the sky this past spring 2006. They were then succeeded by "Tori" and "Lacey", whom we found out about 4 weeks later were really "Ted" and "Lacey" when they blessed us with 6 little surprises! Needless to say, after begging all our friends to give a baby hamster a good home, we ended up with 3 of the brood left and now have "Hailey", "Kenny" and "Frisco" in addition to their parents, "Ted " and "Lacey".
After having to purchase 3 new CritterTrail hamster habitats, and 3 more exercise balls and special quiet wheels for them to run in, I decided that maybe I should look into buying stock in the company. But then this is when I realized the quiet conspiracy going on. You see, the pet store sells you two hamsters, supposedly females that are young and raised together so that they can live together in the same cage. What they actually sell to you is a male and female because they know that the average hamster buyer does not know the difference. So you go home with 1 cage and 2 hamsters. Then a month later, you get a little surprise when your children get up in the morning and come busting in your bedroom to tell you that there are little pink hairless squeaking things in the cage with their pets which you determine are either the result of immaculate conception or one of the female hamsters is in fact, NOT female! Of course the people in the pet store knew this the whole time and slyly smile when they see you walk back into the pet store to purchase another $40 hamster cage to prevent another surprise. When you explain your dilemma to them and threaten to make them pay "hamster support" , they just shrug their shoulders and say "We're sorry, somebody must have made a mistake"- I'd say so! (But I know it was no mistake, that sheepish smile on the pet store manager's face doesn't fool a smart mom like me for a moment!)
Now, the rest of the conspiracy comes in when they know that once those babies your hamster had are 3 weeks old, they will need to be separated and go to new homes. But they know that most people do not have enough friends who are fond enough of hamsters to take these wonderful little creatures off the hands of the poor suckers who bought the first two hamsters in the first place. So 3 weeks later, you are back to the pet store to buy 2-3 more hamster cages for the wonderful babies that nobody wants and you have to end up keeping because you are too kind to do anything else to those cute little babies that your kids have grown attached to as they watched them go from ugly hairless things to cute fuzzy little animals that like to be held and play.
Sigh...
Oh, after I decided that I didn't want to give that crooked pet store anymore business and went to another pet store to purchase yet another hamster cage for the brood, there is a sign hanging up in the aisle where the hamster cages are that says "FREE HAMSTER WITH ANY CAGE PURCHASE!"- of course right at eye-level of my 2 children. This is when my son declares he wants to have his own hamster and promises to take care of it as ALL the other hamsters belong to his sister and she won't share any of them- "and mom, it's free!" (Darn that pet store for hanging such signs at the eye level of children and darn those schools for teaching my kids to read!) Besides always being a sucker for getting something free when you purchase something else, how could I say no to my poor pet-deprived son when his sister now had 5 hamsters and he had none? Besides, I justified to myself, this would help teach him responsibility...
And so, now there are 6. "Reese" came home with us and joined our merry crew as my son's very own pet he keeps in his own room- a fact that he is quite proud of.
The moral of the story: NEVER buy 2 hamsters and house them in the same cage unless you are have an advanced education in determining the sex of hamsters! Be sure you can verify for yourself that the pet store that you are buying them from is not going to make you an innocent victim of their conspiracy to sell more cages, wheels, hamster exercise balls, bedding, food, and toys for the 10 hamsters you will have in 6 weeks or less!