Maisie Comes to Live with Us

Thursday afternoon was a stressful time for little Maisie. She was picked up rather unceremoniously and lifted from her familiar surroundings in the pet shop, placed in a small hamster travel cage and driven to her new home with us. She wasn't at all pleased about this because if there is one thing hamsters hate it's change. If something was in a certain place yesterday it should be in the same place today. If it isn't, that's cause for concern and calls for some serious investigation before the change is accepted.

Maisie, an everyday golden hamster, checked everything out on the two lower floors of her cage but stopped right there when she found a wheel. She hadn't had one at the pet shop, yet knew at first glance that this was a place for running. It took only a minute for us to see that when it comes to running, Maisie is made of championship material. She felt certain she was running back to the pet shop and would stop every 15 or 20 seconds to check how far she had gone. Not far at all so she went right back to it.

Daylight hours are for sleeping in the hamster world, but Maisie was awake and overly excited far into the night. She was awake bright and early Friday morning and feeling far more comfortable in her new home. She had already learned that the kitchen is the place Jackie goes to when it's time for a hamster treat. She just stands alert and unmoving, her eyes fixed in that direction, because like all the hamsters that have come before her she can't think of a single reason why Jackie would be in the kitchen if it wasn't to get a tiny piece of lettuce, a sliver of carrot or some other tasty morsel for her.
After getting what she hoped for, Maisie settled down and slept all day. There was a problem, though. The place she chose for a bed was actually her potty. To her it seemed like a fine place, dark and safe from monsters and other scary creatures. Today, much to our relief, she decided the little house in a corner of her cage was an even nicer place to sleep.

Last night she rolled around the living room in her clear plastic ball. This morning she ventured down the hall to the bedroom and office. Now she has explored everything, including the top two floors of her cage. She already knows that Jackie is her best friend, the one who cares for her and provides those special treats. She seems to have accepted that I go with the territory so she'll tolerate my presence, but the radio confuses her. She hears music and people talking but can't figure out where they are. Last evening the television interested her so she sat up straight and watched until two men began fighting. She jerked her head back, not liking that a bit, and then found something more peaceful to occupy her interest.

So it appears that Maisie is going to like it here. She'd better because she cost nine bucks and shortly after we brought her home Jackie went out and spent $68 on toys and other stuff for her. That's on top of a couple of hundred dollars worth of cages, playpens and other hamster items that were here before her arrival. But as Jackie would say, "She's worth it." So were all the tiny ones that came before her: Sadie and Joey and Zoe and Mr. Zip-Zip and Sophie and eleven more when we were in Muncie. Maisie doesn't know she's Number Sixteen and probably wouldn't care if she did. In her mind she's Number One.