Our Two Jessie's - Mannies Pet Hamsters

Sam loved the name “Jessie” when she was a little girl. When she played with dolls or played make believe everyone she assigned a name to became Jessie. When we got home from traveling she was promised a pet and she wanted a hamster. She had already acquired a cat but that’s another story for another day. http://annrandolph.hubpages.com/hub/Tiger-Lilly-One-Contented-Fat-Cat

We went to the pet shop and she chose a little gray hamster. Of course she named the hamster Jessie. Jessie was a wonderful pet for Sam and she loved to be held. Jessie was a great housekeeper and she cleaned her cage daily. She would throw her droppings outside the cage for us to sweep up. When her cage was just the way she wanted it, she started grooming herself until she was sparkly clean. She would then crawl into her nest and stay tucked in until after we went to sleep at which time she would begin her nightly journey on her wheel. Never sure how far she made it but she was hard at it until the wee hours of the morn. She would then tuck away until the following afternoon when she would start her daily routine again.

Initially, we covered her cage at night thinking she must want to be tucked in but eventually gave up that habit because she chewed a hole in anything made of fabric. She loved her weekly cage cleaning because she got to explore the bar which held snacks for her while the dirty deed was done. The cat would often jump on the bar but never attacked Jessie, just wanted to bat at her a little bit to get some action out of her. We stopped this as well because action we got. Life was good for somewhere between two to three years.

One Saturday morning as I was cleaning her cage, she was playing on the bar and I didn’t notice a tiny plastic cap off of a tube of glue. She ate the top without my knowledge and went on about her business. Later that day I noticed the cap was missing but didn’t associate it with the cage cleaning. Later in the week, her stomach began to swell and she quit eating. By the time I realized what had happened, Jessie was gone. We were very saddened and out of respect provided her with the best funeral we knew how. Sam buried her in a special box she had received in a paint by numbers art gift and wrapped her in her best Pooh towel. Jim prayed as Sam played piano and I sang “Swing Low Sweet Chariot”. After the service was over, Jim buried her quietly in the backyard. The burial spot was later marked with a rock.

Jim and I were most content to leave the memory of Jessie lie but Sam in keeping up her longing for pets, decided another hamster was appropriate. This time she chose a panda bear hamster and man oh man what a difference. We picked the hamster up after ordering it from the pet store and took our darling home. Of course its name was Jessie. Sam tried to pick the pet up and got a ferocious bite. She jerked away and splattered blood on the bathroom wall. Later we discovered Jessie was in fact a boy and since he proved to be an outlaw we renamed him Jessie James. This turned out to be quite prophetic.

Jessie James held true to his name. Jessie had no basic housekeeping skills. He would take his food from the bowl, put it in his bed and then use the bathroom all over the food and bedding. He would drag his nest into his wheel and then desperately try to run on it. Sam had gotten one of the newer cages for Jessie James and acquired a new addition to the cage weekly. There were tunnels going everywhere. Jessie James took his bedding into the narrow tunnels and then would get stuck unable to move anywhere. We had to pry him loose on numerous occasions until the tunnels didn’t quite fit right. Jessie would then escape and did quite a bit of damage to Sam’s bedroom rug before he was captured.

Life continued with Jessie never fully adapting to his lifestyle or family. He never got the exercise he needed because we couldn’t keep his bed out of the wheel and he chose instead to hide in a little log kept in the cage.

The grandchildren arrived one spring about two years later and after a major squawk over who got to hold him next, the hamster escaped. He somehow got behind the walls where we heard him scurry for several days. He finally resurfaced one evening at dinner as he ran across the kitchen floor. Unable to catch him, he ran under the stove. The dog and cat positioned themselves on the floor in front of the stove for hours. Unable to reach the hamster, we finally went to bed. The next morning, Jessie James, the outlaw, was stretched out on the kitchen floor, never to pee on his food again.

We explained to Sam that the death of so many pets was emotionally trying for Jim and me and that we could not endure the loss of another pet. This has turned out to be a wise decision for our family.

The season of hamsters was over.