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The scream from the basement was guttural.

I thought one of the kids had injured themselves severely. But as luck would have it, it was just another pocket pet incident. Pocket pet is a term used to cover a wide range of pets. Mice, rats, gerbils, hamsters, etc. Our first was a hamster that the kids just had to have. Someone gave us the little guy, but without much of a cage. He was in a small fish aquarium. The wife didn’t like the size being so small so she made a trip to our local pet store to buy the full rig. Big cage, exercise ball, tubes to run through, food and water feeders, chew toys and who knows what else.

The kids thought it was the greatest. They were small and sleeping in our downstairs bedrooms with the new pet seeming to be happy in his new digs. Little did they know his only desire in life was to get out of that cage. It seemed impossible but he chewed out of that cage right through the plastic. When he did get out he went rogue. He would bite like a wild animal and go crazy when he was loose when captured. It became a nightly affair to find him in the basement, catch him with my fireplace gloves on, fix the hole in the cage, then see how long it took for him to escape again. The kids called this game “Mouse Hunt,” and that was before the movie of the same name came out.

So, back to the scream. He chewed out again but this time had been gone for three weeks. My son kept telling us he could hear sounds from the walls at night, but I assured him it was just the house shifting. That is until the night of the scream. The oldest daughter had gotten up in the middle of the night to go the bathroom. While sitting on the toilet, the hamster ran right across both of her feet in the dark. He was still alive living in the store room and the walls. Shortly after that he was never seen again, that is until the water heater needed replaced years later. I didn’t mention it to the kids. I quietly buried his mummified remains in our pet cemetery.

He was the first, but certainly not the last of our pocket pet experiences. Next was a hedge hog named “Sonic,” of course. He was an interesting little guy, unless you tried to hold him. He would roll up into a ball with all his quills’ sticking out like needles. The kids would hold him in those same gloves I used for the fire place. They caught him grubs and bugs and took good care of him.

The newness wore off and then the girls read that hedge hogs anoint themselves with spit and foam on their quills. He was “gross” after that so I gave him away to a breeder I knew. Next came “Double Blessing,” the theologically named Guinea pig from the Christian School. He had been there all his life till his teacher retired. Then he needed to find a home. The statements you get in these situations are always the same. “You’re a vet, so you must love animals, so I gave the class Guinea pig to your daughter to take home as a pet.”

There is no good way out, so you end up with a new pet. By this time we had acquired all the various cages needed for these guys. We had the four-foot by four-foot cage with all the amenities. Watering station, several types of food bowls, and enough cedar chips the guys feet never touched the bottom of the cage. Compared to mice, rats, gerbils and hamsters, the pig was a pretty good pet. We had him so long he seemed like part of the basement.

But in the end that was his undoing. He seemed to live in one corner of his cage more than anywhere else. It was closer to the wood stove and always warm in that spot. He would get active at times and run all around, especially for leftover veggies from the table. Having a pig was like having a composter in the basement. He ate about anything along with his pellets.

They are maintenance free but for nail trims and teeth checks. I don’t know how long he lived, but he was ancient as far as pigs go. But lo, after a very busy week at the office, and preparing for a staff members wedding, I had paid little attention to Double B. I had placed his food and water in his cage each day but had failed to notice he hadn’t moved out of his corner in some time. Just before we left for the wedding, I went down to the basement to see why he wasn’t moving around more. You didn’t have to be a vet to figure this one out. He was dead. He apparently had died of old age some days or weeks before. As the little boy said in Dumb and Dumber, “I just thought he was real quiet.” He had desiccated in the heat of the basement and was perfectly preserved in his corner. A taxidermist could not have done better. The middle daughter made the mistake of asking me at the wedding how Double B was, and like an idiot, I told her he was dead. I wont go into details but at she still holds that one against me.

I don’t miss the basement smelling of mouse urine or cedar chips, but it was fun to share all the little pets with my four kids as they grew up. These types of pets don’t cost a lot to keep, yet provide some interesting interaction. I’m a grandfather now, and I suspect one of the grandkids may ask the same question their parents did: “Can we keep him, please? Please?” They will give in and start their own pocket pet adventure.

Tags: Pets