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What a lot of people do not know about me is that I love hamsters. Not just any hamsters, but Siberian/Russian Dwarf hamsters to be specific. When I was like 11-12 years old, I had my first dwarf hamster, which my older sister had named "Minky." It was our pet, but eventually as she grew older, Minky became my pet. I loved Minky. He helped me as a creative outlet, as a curious pre-teen, I had nothing better to do than make creative ways to amuse myself and Minky. I fed him interesting foods, built structures and mazes for him to overcome, and even used him as the subject of my 6th grade science project. As I myself grew older, and other things took my attention, I spent less and less time with Minky. I made sure his food bowl was stocked and his water bottle was always adequate. I didn't hold him anymore. Cleaning his cage felt more like a nuisance than doing my little friend a huge favor by relieving him of his own well partitioned filth. Already impressed with the fact that he had outlived the typical dwarf hamster's life expectancy of two years by another two years, I didn't do much more with him. He grew old and cranky; a combination of aging and neglect. One of my last memories is of him biting my next door neighbor so hard, that he was hanging on his index finger by his teeth. He never bit me once in those four years. And then one day, as I went in to refill his food bowl, and I realized that Minky didn't come out. Curiously, I opened the lid to the Planters peanut container with the hole in the side, which Minky made his bed, and I discovered, that Minky was dead. I shouldn't have been surprised, seeing as how Minky was four years old, but right there, the realization that my little rodent friend had finally moved on, completely unknown to me. I didn't even know when he died. It could've been an hour prior, or a week, I wouldn't have known because it had been a while since I last checked in on him. I was sad for a while afterwards. A couple of years later, my mother came home with three dwarf hamsters, all that looked like Minky. They were no replacement for Minky, but I eventually warmed up to them, and became fascinated at seeing three dwarf hamsters all together. Now I never had a closeness to these hamsters like I did with Minky, but these hamsters provided me with something that Minky could never provide - knowledge. Within a few months, one of the three hamsters became pregnant and had babies. Within hours afterwards, the four babies were dead and eaten, by their parents. This happened twice more, while I was trying to figure out what was going on. Apparently, hamsters are extremely protective of their young while they are newborns through three weeks, and the slightest disturbance could result in them "protecting" their young, by devouring them. Don't ask me why, but that's the stuff I learned. The last litter of hamsters actually survived, since I kept my distance during their early stages of life. They were the most adorable creatures in the world. I wanted to love these new, young hamsters, but there were so many of them. Three adults, and three young. After three weeks, they were almost indistinguishable from each other. Eventually, the mass in-breeding began to take place. At one point I had 15 dwarf hamsters split between two aquariums, a travel case, and a tin holiday popcorn container. I gave a few away, but for the most part, was stuck with a huge legion of them. And then all of a sudden, they started dying. As if the genetic weakening through generations of inbreeding began to catch up with them, they started dying. I cared for them with careful food and separation of the visibly sick hamsters, but slowly, they began to fall, one by one. And then the last one died, very quietly - I didn't know whether it was snuggled into a ball to keep warm, but when I poked it did I realize it was dead. And then there were none.
It wouldn't be until July of this year that Jennifer and I stumble upon Deh-jee. While killing time, waiting for our sneak-preview of Fantastic Four, Jen and I went into a pet store to look around. After looking at the various breeds of puppies and their excellent selection of fresh and saltwater fish, did we finally come upon a large containment, with two Siberian dwarf hamsters. Looking at them, I was flooded with memories of Minky and the 15 subsequent hamsters I once owned, and how interesting they could be, when kept in controlled numbers. One of these two were a dark gray dwarf, a pretty uncommon color. And then there was one cinnamon colored dwarf, with red eyes. I asked the employees if I could pick one of them up, and they gave me the okay. I reached in to pick up the gray one, and was met immediately with a slap of defiance and resistance. Obviously, this one was not feeling friendly, and did not want to be picked up. So I tried my luck with the cinnamon-furred dwarf. I laid my hand, palm up in front of it. It sniffed my hand, but for the most part did not resist when I picked it up. A quick flip of it revealed that he was indeed a male, and Jennifer and I both took turns holding him. He was very friendly, curiously moving quickly through our hands. Furthermore, he was visibly victimized by his gray-haired by the scab behind one of his ears. His friendliness and our sympathy towards his abusive situation led to Jennifer and I buying him right there on the spot. The name "Deh-jee" means "Pork" or "Pig" in Korean. Yes, Deh-jee was neither, but it just seemed like an appropriate name at the time, so it stuck. He was special - in more ways than the obvious. The cinnamon fur with red eyes is a less common breed than the standard brown fur with black stripe, and even the dark gray dwarf. Furthermore, despite Deh-jee's age, he was very friendly and well-behaved. Dwarf hamsters have to be handled and acclimated to humans at a very early age for them to grow up to be relatively friendly to humans. Either Deh-jee received lots of attention as a pup, or he was just a natural, but the fact is that he never bit Jennifer or myself in the short time we owned him. Deh-jee was our pet - as in both Jennifer's and mine. The cats and one dog in this house are her pets, not mine. The fish, blue lobster, and hermit crab I have are my pets. To say that I loved Deh-jee more than Minky would be true. The things that I did with Minky when I was 11 or 12 years old were things I wanted to do with Deh-jee. We fed him all sorts of treats, from soy nuts, apricot slices to pistachios. We rigged various sized paper towel and toilet paper tubes to make little mazes for him to scurry through. And then on December 11th, 2005, tragedy struck, when Jennifer and I came home to discover a toppled cage with Deh-jee, limp and lifeless inside of it. How the cage fell remains a mystery, but I feel awful and must take full responsibility to its inevitable fall. The cage developed a wobbly base, so I always had the cage sitting on the edge of my desk, so that the base could rest a hair off the desk to eliminate the wobble. I would say that 4-5% of the actual structure actually rested precariously on the edge, but I am still puzzled to how a creature that weighs less than an ounce managed to tip his cage over the edge. But it's not his fault, it's mine for putting the cage on the edge of a desk in the first place. His short life ended even shorter thanks to my own incompetance and negligence. I will never get the chance to build great obstacles or mazes for Deh-jee. I will never get the chance to see if Deh-jee would eat a Rony Seikaly basketball card, even if it were lightly coated in fruit preserves. I will never feel the sudden rush of warmth of hamster urine soaking a spot in my white t-shirts as I let him run freely on my chest while I am watching sports. Potential years of memories will not happen, because it's my fault. The least I can do is let everyone who reads this know that I really did love my pet hamster, and to some it may seem silly, but others might actually be able to feel what I am feeling. Either way, I don't really care what anyone else thinks, because this is my tribute to my departed animal friend. I took a total 57 photographs and nine movie clips of Deh-jee while he was alive and healthy.. Here I am going to display every single one of them. Hopefully a higher-speed connection is in use here.
Deh-jee
movie clips - Deh-jee eats all, runs the wheel better than all,
Rest in peace, little furry friend. |
Deh-jee,
Siberian Dwarf Hamster
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