88 Many of us have Lost a Pet in an Unusual Way

    

  

    Alan and I had just finished getting our two munchkins ready for bed when I heard a bang downstairs. At first, I didn’t know what it was, and then I saw a picture of the hamster’s plastic exercise ball in my mind’s eye. “Oh, shit!” I said. "I forgot the hamster was still in his ball.

    I ran downstairs, with Kyle trailing behind me and Alan clamoring at our heels, carrying Nicole.  The ball had evidently fallen off the foyer step and onto the living room rug.  Somehow the door on the ball had unhinged itself and fallen off. Or had I not been paying attention when I placed the door on the ball, so it didn’t clasp correctly?  I picked the ball up, but nothing was in it. Oh, man, where’s the hamster? I thought. I looked under the baby grand piano, but he wasn’t there, and Alan looked around in the living room.  Kyle dropped to his knees and looked under the sofa, nothing.

   Buster, our Scottish Terrier, had run under the stairs, munching on something.  Dropping the ball, I rushed to the dog and surmised that Buster had decided anything running around in his territory that was smaller than he, was fair game.  We followed the culprit into the brightly lit kitchen. Kyle kept yelling over and over, “Drop the hamster!”  I didn’t know what to do. We just stood by like hopeless idiots. I’m sure all of our heartbeats were thumping double time.

Miniature hamster   Vs.  Terrier

   Of course, it didn’t help that Alan kept yelling at me, “Pull it out! Pull the hamster out, now.” Anyone yelling places me in freeze mode. I couldn’t think. Then I looked at Alan holding Nicole, our one in a half-year-old daughter who sat calmly sitting on his hip, watching the whole scene. How could she be so calm? I felt like I had ten cups of coffee.

    “Just reach in and pull it out!” Alan again yelled excitedly.  I grabbed Buster’s collar and fell to one knee and pulled him towards me.  “Hurry up and open the hamster’s mouth!” Nicole leaned over, watching us with an inquisitive look on her face, like a little scientist. Kyle stood by repeating almost every word his dad said in a whiny four-year-old voice.

   Finally, I grabbed Buster’s square jaws and placed pressure on either side of the joints. The back of Buster’s long pink tongue kept lifting up, struggling to get the rest of his meal down. I’m sure he thought I was going to rob him of his delectable dessert. “I see his hairy butt.”

    

   Alan yelled, “Just get it, stop being afraid!”

   “I’m not afraid.” I snapped, a bit louder than I realized.  “I’m just trying to figure out what to do.”

   There was no way this hamster was going to make it out alive even if I could pull him out. Neither of my kids needed to see this execution; therefore, I grabbed Buster’s collar and pulled him outside onto the grass, away from the yelling and away from a sobbing little boy. I slammed the sliding glass door behind me. Alan made a move to follow me outside, and my hand flew up in a stop sign. He knew what I meant. I watched Buster tilt his head back and gulp a couple of times. The hamster was gone.      

   

    Once I opened the door, Kyle ran outside with clenched fists, and sternly said over and over like a stuck record, “Bad dog. Bad, bad, bad dog.”  He followed Buster into the middle of the yard, and of course, our Scottie ignored him while he did his business.  Grabbing Buster's square jaw, he squatted right in front of him and yelled, “I’m very mad at you!” And wagged his finger at him. “You’re a bad dog!” I almost burst out laughing; Kyle sounded and looked so cute.

    Alan, who can’t let anything go, much like Kyle, said, “Why didn’t you pull the hamster out when I told you to?”     

   “How could I do that? All I could see was the butt of the hamster. Plus, that, he had already entered Buster's throat.” I snarled. I was perturbed at Alan because I felt like he was attacking me.

   “Well, I didn’t know how far he was. I thought you could just pull him out since you had pried his mouth open,” Alan explained innocently. “I was just hoping,” Alan said, lifting his eyebrows and giving me that innocent little boy look, which made me soften.

   All of us returned upstairs to watch some nameless T.V. show.  Too hyped to go to bed, we let the kids stay up past their 7 pm bedtime. 

   “What are you going to tell your students?” Alan asked.

   “The truth,” I responded. “They’ll be sad to have lost a class pet, but I think they’ll see some humor in the way they lost him. I’ll buy them a new one.”

    The next day, I dug an honorary hole near the garage and laid some of the sawdust from the hamster cage into the hole and Kyle, and I said a little prayer for the little critter. I then shared how much we enjoyed having him in our lives and what we enjoyed about the furry little miniature hamster, and Kyle remembered some funny stories about the hamster also.  I placed a small stick cross that I had created on his grave, and Kyle pulled a flower off a nearby bush and placed it on the grave also. 

     Kyle was still so angry at Buster that he refused to talk to him or pet Buster for a week. Alan explained to him that Buster did what dogs naturally do and that before dogs became pets, they had to find their food. We also talked to him about the importance of forgiveness.
     Another way to honor a pet is to light a candle and let the whole family take turns sharing the funny stories they remember and the frustrating times.  Thank your pet for being a part of your life and hope he's in pet heaven playing with other animals.