rosie

we returned last night to an apartment that was missing something. of course rosie's little cage wasn't there waiting for us but the thought that we would not be rushing over to pick her up first thing saturday  created an horrible ache within us.

rosie chose to leave this world last sunday while we were away. it was a huge shock to us and to our friend who was taking care of her while we were gone. our sturdy little rosie seemed to be improving with the meds the vet had prescribed her. i miss her but am also glad that she too is now in a place where no bars surround her. 

rosie truly hated being within the bars of her cage. she, like fuzzy, came to us as a house guest for three weeks when her first family was travelling in december 2011. both sat huddled together in their empty food box during the cab trip to our apartment. fuzzy chose to stay in there and watch us when their cage was set down. rosie clambered up the door and sniffed vigourously. she jumped into her owners hand as soon as he opened the door. after he left she climbed up again and with a lot of fear, never having handled hamsters before, i opened the door and she zoomed around the room till she tired herself out and then fell into an exhausted sleep.

that was her way of dealing with change, go hyper, check out the environment and sleep it off. the strategy worked for her for as my daughter remarked nothing stressed rosie out. she was happy and it was contagious. she took us out of our dark moods and made us laugh with her crazy antics. anyone who thinks hamsters don't have personalities havn't met rosie and fuzzy.

i was the first to handle her but she soon became my daughters favourite. shibble could not ever resist her charming plea to be let out and rosie was often found reading a book or exploring every nook and corner of shibble's room. my husband often walked around the house proudly holding one little hamster in each palm. every time someone visited us rosie had to come out and sniff at the newcomer before running off to explore the room over and over again. 

her first family must have been told that rosie was a boy hamster and we continued to believe this till her last weeks. we all thought she was a little male with lots of aggressive testosterone - we even joked about changing rosie's name to killer. fuzzy was almost twice rosie's size but most times she bullied him. when he exercised on the wheel she would climb on and try to run the other way till he got tired and got off. fuzzy liked to sleep on the wheel and rosie would jump over him and run making sure her feet dug into his face. if he turned around she would just climb over and get on the other side. alone on the wheel rosie ran so fast that she often turned right over with the momentum of the wheel. she would tumble over and keep running. watching her on the wheel was sheer joy.

rosie had no survival instinct or she just trusted in us or the universe. she would jump right over the edge of heights and we had to be really careful to keep watching her wherever she was. she was so tiny that she would wiggle into the smallest of holes and disappear. we would panic as we tried to reach her but she would be happily grooming in a dark corner. 

one day we woke to see a miserable looking fuzzy with a bloody face. when this happened again their first family separated them to avoid them hurting each other fatally. so, when they returned to us in june 2012 they were in separate cages and interacted only under supervision. rosie's cage had what is called a mushroom hanging from the ceiling - we called it her condo. it had a tube through which she could climb up into the top which had several holes on the outer surface. she loved sleeping with her head on one of the lower holes but she would poke her head from any of the 'windows' to watch what was going on in the room. sometimes she would sit and watch tv, sometimes she would look over into fuzzy's cage and sometimes at us. she would agilely jump out of the window when we opened her cage door. 

watching her drink water also made us smile. she would just sit with her mouth to the water tube, eyes closed and drink for 20-30 minutes. later my husband discovered that she loved licking water off our fingers. hamsters are supposed to dislike baths but rosie learn't how to rub her back against her water bottle and get it soaking wet. maybe it helped her stay cool. one afternoon she was restless and i put my hand in to see what was wrong. that was the only time she ever bit anyone. it turned out that her water tube had been clogged by hairs and she was thirsty.

she loved food and ate up all the fish before fuzzy got to them but she was so hyper that she remained tiny till one traumatic incident. rosie and fuzzy were wandering the room and fuzzy was following her around while she ignored him. maybe it was revenge for all the bullying he had been the target of - fuzzy got on top of rosie and before we knew it chewed off her ear. rosie squealed and we pulled them apart and cleaned the ear up. by morning it was already healing and it grew back completely in a couple of weeks. after this rosie ate and ate and ate and got fat. she would sit on her haunches and stick her head out like she was throwing a punch at fuzzy if he came near. he soon learned to stay away and began to cower if she came near.

once after we shampooed her with some strawberry foam and were drying her with a paper towel, rosie grabbed it and began manically shredding it to bits. she stuffed her cheeks till they were twice her size with the shreds and ran around the room when we tried to pull the paper out of her mouth. we got long bits of it out but still once she got into her cage she spat out the rest and happily pulled it around the litter making a cosy nest. maybe this should have given us a clue to the fact that she was a girl hamster. fuzzy shredded the paper enthusiastically but never tried to make a nest of it.

after fuzzy passed on she got more and more attention. as she aged she lost the ability to use her back legs and would drag them along. she also developed cataracts yet she never stopped wanting to wander to some of her favourite spots in the room. though she did suddenly develop a survival instinct and   would back off from the edge of the sofa unlike before.

it was heartbreaking to see how passive she got when she developed a stomach infection. in the tension of the 'non-move' we were going through we probably got her to the vet a few days later than we should have. but with the increased care she improved despite the vets gentle warning that she might just die. we discovered how much she loved chilled apples and papaya. to get her to take her probiotic all we had to do was hold her on her back in our palm and put a cotton tip with the probiotic to her face. she licked it off till she was tired of it and then pushed it away with her paws, and then screwed up her face when her paws got sticky. she could barely eat her solid foods but she would peck at her apple treat and lick up the cream inside. she could not groom herself and she loved it when we cleaned her off. she loved being clean. it perked up her spirits.

it was when she was ill that we realized she was a girl. and then we were even more in love with her. rosie was a warrior, nothing fazed her and she found a way to be happy always. she taught us how to be happy too. there will never be another like her and we all just want her back here with us. her short life was rich and sweetened our lives immensely.