This little post is dedicated to the first pet my wife and I had together: ZhuBaoBei
ZhuBaoBei was a tiny Roborovski Hamster and we bought him in summer of 2010. These kind of hamsters are the ones you can look at but they don’t like being played with, they just want to do whatever hamsters do without being annoyed by people. We surely let him mostly do whatever he wanted but from time to time we wanted to hold him which resulted most of the time in me getting bitten by him. He was also fairly good in keeping us awake at night as hamsters are night active and they do some intense noise all night long.
Sometimes he also escaped magically from his cage (we still don’t know how he managed!) and would search his bag of food, eat a little hole in it and carry bit by bit the food to his new “nest”. Though you might think they must be rather silent when sneaking around they surely are not when eating their food! Thanks to this we could always hear when he escaped and search for his new nest which was usually under our sofa. There under the sofa he created a huge pile of food transported from his food bag. Towards the end of his life he could still meet with his new sisters, our two bunnies which we bought in summer of 2011.
I am writing this post because around this time in October 2011 he passed away. He was just a bit over two years old and I hope he had some fun during that time. He will be always in our memories even though he had such a short time with us. Now he rests in the yard of our former apartment in Finland and I just hope it is not too cold for him as Winter is coming.
Did you had any pets? What was your first one/ what are your memories of it?
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ZhuBaoBei was lucky to be an only rodent. Two of my little sisters had gerbils: Snow White, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty. Apparently they did not get fed enough. Or maybe they were just mean. Snow White and Sleeping Beauty went cannibal on Cinderella.
We had rabbits, too. It’s better that no one knows their fate.
Haha, this poor little critters 😀
In fact my wife didn’t even notice that the hamster died…it was me on my daily cage cleaning and feeding routine that I notice the lifeless body in his nest. Oh well, seems that it was good that he was a lone rodent and thus didn’t get eaten by others 😮
Mr.Panda-hating kitty cat. Unfortunately she got cancer and passed away in December 2012. I had her for 16 years and we practically grew up together. I miss her a lot and frequently still dream about her.
She was so cute and fluffy and I was always so happy when she spend time with me. She always had to stay with someone and loved boxes far too much. 😀
I have the feeling that all cats love boxes more than anything else in the world!
It is always sad when an animals passes away, especially when you spend such long time with them and kind of grow up. Did you ever consider getting anew cat at some point?
Yes I really want one again, but Mr.Panda is allergic. It was OK with my old one cause she couldn’t go near him and only gave him death stares from far away.
But a new kitty would probably like him and want to cuddle with him, so that might be no good. 😦
How about a doggy? Though might be much work also taking walks three times a day :p
Perhaps its best for now just to have your memories of you cat and consider at some point later in life what animals would suit you both 🙂
A dog is too much work, and it would be poor to have to life in a small apartment with us. We tought about getting one later maybe.
Right now Mr.Panda is lucky because his collegue brings his Chihuahua to the office almost everyday. Doggy likes him, so they cuddle and play a lot.
And I… I cuddle every cat I see haha. 😀
I understand you 😦 back in 2012 my dog, we spent over 14 years together, passed away (I don’t want to point my fingers at Momzilla, but she arrived a week later to Poland …); my heart broke 😦
I think the poor dog felt the evil presence approaching 😦
I never had a pet when growing up so I never felt the pain as you
So cuuuuute! The tragedy of small animals though is that they don’t live long. Actually two years old for a hamster is pretty good; you must be a great pet owner!
I had a dog when I was a kid, a sweet beagle, my one and only major pet in my life.
As an expat, it would be easier to have a cat, as many of my friends do. But I’m allergic to cats ~
I don’t know if I am a good pet owner but I try my best and try to give the animals the best environment I can offer.
My parents had a few dogs when I was still a a baby but the last one passed away when I was just four years old so I never grew up with any pet. Later on in my teens I got an aquarium but that’s again another story.
Cats might be pretty good for expats (except when you are allergic..) however they can be also some little devils when trying out their claws on your furniture
Aww he sounds lovely. I had a hamster too, which I bought against my parents’ wishes in 2005. She also lived just over two years and though she didn’t like being cuddled as it cramped her style way too much, she crawled in my hands to take his last breaths, broke my heart )’:
It is rather sad that these cute little animals live so short. We missed the last breaths of our hamster, the day before he was still running around but much slower than usually ans next day I found him in his tiny nest 😦
What a cute little hamster of a pet. I am sure he entertained you and your family, and friends, while he was alive. I never had any pets growing up as my parents didn’t like pets and said they dirtied the house. They didn’t even consider fish 😦 So I always had my stuffed animals, in particular stuffed monkeys, as so-called pets.
I remember that you mentioned before that you didn’t had any pets. I will have a post someday (perhaps this year still) about my aquarium…/ multiple tanks by now. Perhaps even something for you for these days? (Will have some detailed stuff in my article also about the animals living in it…)
I am looking forward to your animal posts. Especially about the fish, because I hear they die easily if you do even the slightest bit wrong to the fish tank and its food.
Sadly no animals these days for me. But my next post is about my stuffed monkey called Mr Wobbles.
Well, it can be tricky at the beginning with the fish/ shrimps but after few months an aquarium is running stable and you dont even have to do much then 🙂
Looking forward to Mr Wobbles!
I never had and never want pets. I am a lazy bum and very neglectful, so any pets who end up under my care would probably die 😦 .
Yeah I know what you mean. I was pretty lazy before as well and we got only the pets because my wife wanted them and promised she would take care of them. Well guess what, she is the lazy bum now and I do all the work :p
many years ago i had a cute orange canary who lived for 11 years…
Oh yes, birds care also great companions for many years. My friend had a canary for at least ten years and it was always funny how the bird came flying to him when he got home ( the bird cage was nearly always open)
exactly! thank you for your words! 🙂
We had a pet budgie bird for about 8 years when I was younger. He was the friendliest little guy ever and spent more time out of the cage than in. He would sit on our shoulders and heads, but his favorite place to peach was on the curtain rod.
I remember the blog you did on the bunnies – they are super cute!
Budgies are funny little things. When I was younger I always wanted one but never was allowed 😦
Yeah those bunnies we have…they are fluffy as hell but this also includes bunny hairs flying all over the place ;
What a cute little hamster story! My sister had a hamster once, and he used to run away too.
I’ve had both cats and dogs. When we lived in the Philippines we even had a huge outdoor cage for parakeets, silky chickens, and quail. Also while we were there we had a pair of beautiful English beagles. The female gave birth to three of the cutest puppies. But this is a sad story. The puppies got sick and within a day or two all of them died. It was the saddest thing for the our three daughters and my husband and me.
Having your pet die is already terrible but to see how cute puppies die is even worse!
You really had a wide collection of pets over the years. I had myself only some fish (again now…) , the hamster and the bunnies. When I was younger my parents had several dogs but they all passed away when I was still too young to understand anything about it
Aww..it’s always sad when pets pass away. I used to have a budgie, when I was a kid, but one day he flew out of his cage. I was so sad that my parents got me a new budgie, claiming that it was the old one, who had come back because he missed me. Poul and I have never had a pet together. Considering we can’t even keep our plants alive, I don’t want to think about what would happen if we had a pet:)
Many seem to had once a budgie. I guess they are popular pets besides the standard cat and dog.
Animals need a lot of attention so I can understand why you both dont have any thus far as you are also frequent travelers. Whenever we go to holidays it is a huge mission to find people to take care of our bunnies and to check our fish tanks