WHEN PETS PASS AWAY... BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©
WHEN PETS
PASS AWAY…
BY SANDRA
HARRIS. ©
You’ll notice I didn’t title this piece COPING WITH THE
PASSING OF A PET. I could no more tell you how to do that than I could advise
you on stocks and shares. I can’t even bring myself to use the ‘D’ word in
reference to the demise of a pet. It’s a topic I find very emotional, so I
figured maybe it was time I wrote about it and tried to make sense of it.
My kids and I kept hamsters from October 2017 to October 2022. During this time, we constantly
had hamsters living with us in the house. The Last Ham passed away in October
2022, leaving us pet-less for the first time in five years.
This was a horrible shock to the system, I can tell you. My
daughter told us- my son and I- that she didn’t feel able to care for any more
pets for a while, certainly that side of Christmas. As she’s the one who
typically does all the grunt work for the little critters, we had to respect
this.
We were all devastated, though. A Christmas without hamsters?
Where was the fun in that? No wrapping tiny presents for the little laddies and
lasses to tear open on Christmas morning with their sharp little teeth and
paws? No putting bits of Christmas dinner on tiny doll plates for them to wolf
down over the festive STRICTLY COME DANCING?
Believe it or not, every ham who lived through the winter with us watched STRICTLY with the family. They loved the theme tune and the
jaunty, upbeat music. They loved Christmas music in general and the sound of
music boxes; it’s so full of the sparkly, tinkly little riffs they love. They’re
a musical lot, hammies.
One of our hams, an elderly lady who’d been surrendered to
the shelter because the couple who owned her were having to leave their house
and couldn’t bring her with them, used to come running out of her little log
cabin every time my daughter put GAME OF THRONES on the DVD player. Maybe
her previous owners had been fans of the show. My daughter swears her ears
pricked up to their utmost extent when she heard spoken Dothraki…!
Hamsters are often purchased by people who want a low
maintenance pet who’ll amuse itself. Low maintenance? My eye. We always found our hamsters
got used very quickly to the high standards at our hammie hotel: fresh food and
water round the clock, cuddles on demand, toys and little boxes and tubes to
play with.
They adored little boxes, and getting themselves stuck in
toilet roll tubes so that we’d have to make nee-naw noises like the ambulance
and come fish them out, then they’d have these big adorably cheeky grins on
their faces and, the minute they were free, they’d go right back in the box or
tube and get stuck again…! It’s like when a baby plays let’s feck all these
toys out of the pram and see if The Adult can be prevailed upon to pick ‘em up…
I’m a big reader myself, and the lazier of the hams used to
snooze on my lap or on my chest for hours while I read. These were my favourite
hammies, and funnily enough, these lazy ones were all brown or golden brown
Syrian hamsters, whereas the pure white ones favoured by my daughter tended to
be more active.
I also proved very popular with the poor little sick hams who
were preparing to cash in their chips, as I could sit with them for as long as they
wanted and cuddle and sing them to sleep, which was such a privilege and so
lovely to do.
They were so funny, so loving and so cuddly, and yet, when
they were fed up with you and wanted to spend time alone, they’d slink back
into their little huts and not come out again until they felt like it, unless of
course you crinkled bags of rodent treats (yes, they do technically belong
to the rodent family) at the entrance to their nests, and even that wouldn’t
work every time.
In a way, they were experts in self-care; slept and ate when
they wanted, came out when they wanted cuddles and company, and nipped off home
sharpish when they were bored of being sociable. You might come into the room
and hear them making pottering noises in their little nests, but, if they didn’t
want to come out and be friendly, they’d go silent straightaway to convince you
that you were mistaken; there’s no-one home…! Simultaneously needy and
independent creatures that they are, we made so much love, fun and activity available to them that it
brought even the most reticent of hammies out of themselves.
We anthropomorphised our hammies completely and utterly, that
is to say, we imbued them with human characteristics and appearance. One grumpy
little black long-haired hamster we called Dr. Hams because he kind of looked
like a doctor, and we made it out that he was fond of money and charged five
hundred dollars for every consultation. No-one outside the family would have a
clue what we meant, probably, but we in the know laughed heartily whenever Dr.
Hams pulled another imaginary but genius stroke…!
The boy hams and the girl hams more or less mirrored exactly
their human counterparts. The girls were great home-makers and turned their
bedding into delightfully frilled little rosettes. The boys were obsessed with
their balls and could (and frequently did) give themselves teeny-tiny
blow-jobs. No change there then, lol.
If you came across a ham of either sex either grooming or,
dare I say, pleasuring, themselves, and they didn’t feel like having an
audience, they’d very deliberately turn their back on you and make you feel
like a Peeping Tom; it was so funny when that happened!
There were many vet visits, and much surprise expressed by
many a Dublin city taxi driver that anyone would ever bring a rodent to the
vet. There were happy taxi journeys home, with a ham that just needed an
antibiotic and would be fine, and sad taxi trips when we would be returning
home with the precious cremains of a beloved and loyal old friend.
We even bought a tiny nebuliser from the vet at one point to
nebulise a darling little lady whose lungs were filled with fluid. She was
terrified of the box and the steam but she stuck it out and it made her better.
In fact, she was one of our longest-living and most dearly loved hams and was
the last to pass away. God bless that feisty little girl.
Like I said at the beginning, I’m not qualified to tell anyone
how to get over the passing of a pet. I’m sadder than I could ever tell you
about the passing of ours. This bunch of hamsters we had the privilege to care
for from 2017-2022 were funnier, cuter, wiser, cuddlier and more loving than
most people I’ve ever known. They each had their own independent personality
and idiosyncrasies. They had as much right to be here as you and I, and as much
right to decent accommodation and treatment.
I was brought up Catholic and believe in a People Heaven;
therefore, I have no trouble in believing in a Doggie Heaven, a Kitty Heaven,
or, in our own particular case, a Hammy Heaven. I like the thought of the
Rainbow Bridge, and the thought that all our hammies are up there somewhere
waiting for us. It’s the only thing that gives me comfort and their passings some meaning. So maybe I can advise
you a little bit after all. When you lose a pet that means the world to you, just do, think and believe in whatever comforts you. It might be the only way to get through
it.
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