Little Kiddie Hamster Lesson In Kindness

Caveat… Pictures of rodents on children…. you’ve been warned… 🙂

Ham Kiss

So Rockstar always wanted a pic of Queen E’s former school long-haired guinea pig on his head. As in, Fake Hair Piece. I wasn’t very enthusiastic, because 1) Claws (near face) and 2) the thing poops and pees way more than I expected and even cleaning the cage almost every day and bathing him with diluted baby soap I was still a bit grossed out.

Now we have our own rodent, and after watching her drowsily stumble out of her mug (yeah she sleeps in my (now her) Metropolitan Museum of Art porcelain butterfly mug because it’s pretty) to a corner of the cage to deposit like, one drop of pee in a corner, I decided we could Go All The Way with this one.

When she asked, Rockstar immediately let her go first.

So that’s Bragging Rights #1. Not that he made Ham on Head, but that he helped her go first.

Here’s #2, the Ham Groom:

When your rescued ham is comfy enough perched on your head to groom herself right there (instead of fleeing for her life) you’re probably good to go with her. And finally –

#3: Dis is art. Dis one he’ll show his friends.

Rockstar’s kinda sensitive to sound and touch, so naturally we have to keep blasting music and tickling him send him to get kicked about in taekwondo sparring sessions look for rescued hamsters to put on his head. If you’ve never felt the scrabble of little clawed feet on your back or shoulders, lemme tell you, you haven’t lived.

Not to be outdone, JD horns in on the action. Usually, she hates cuddles and just wants to run in a field. Today however….

She invites herself into Rockstar’s space. Rockstar btw, has a few spaces where no one shalt trespass (or make any noises in) without express permission haha

It’s Queen E though, who is our Border Collie’s favourite. She used to mother Rockstar about, but now he’s gotten bigger she’s moved on to our second child. I just realised, we have very similar footage of JD playing with Rockstar in the same way, when he was Queen E’s age…. but when he got bigger, JD stopped. JD’s been with me since she was 4 months old when Kings bought her for me rather impulsively (she’s now 14) . When I had a bad day, I would look around and find JD sitting quietly as close to me as she could. When she trained for months for HK International Agility Competitions, I was her handler (we won a Relay event under Advanced Agility). But… She’s never, ever behaved this way with me, only the little people. I had a very well-known Gynea who loves dogs, and would say sometimes some animals can really be very gentle with children. Another patient of hers had a cat who was very particular about how and when she was touched, with the adults in the household, but the kids could get away with anything.

And animals can have a capacity for love and kindness that can’t be rivalled by most human beings.

Queen E’s teacher told me about a year ago not to stress about the academics. T’hat’s kinda hard this year, because in HK in the most popular Dragon year in like, 60 years or something (this was told to me by a Korean mum), there’s lotsa Type As. Her Highness at around 2 years old in pre-school had classmates who could already read simple words (and she still can’t sit still for long haha)

Well anyway we’ve got the Type A Hamster class.

Yes this a pic of Queen E ‘s doll house fridge, a picnic hamper and microwave oven filled with sunflower seeds.

The Queen’s goal however, is to be able to go about her day with Gemma in her pocket. Haven’t decided if that’s happening yet… Stay tuned…