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life

Don’t Pounce!

As evidenced by the history already recorded here, keeping rodents as pets with young children pretty well guarantees that there will be a pattern of escape and recapture. Such was the case tonight. Mariah informed me that one of Alyssa’s gerbils had gotten away. Very soon after I got in the room Stormy ran out from behind the dresser and ran next to the edge of the bed. I immediately barked “don’t pounce!” By the time I finished those two words Alyssa had pounced and Stormy was bleeding on the ground. I picked her up directly but she died in my hands within seconds.

Shortly after we got our first litter of baby gerbils Laura had the experience of having Isaac pounce on the gerbil she liked the most with the result that it died in Laura’s hands when she picked it up. I thought of that as Stormy died. In Laura’s case she cried for the loss of life because Isaac was too young to understand what had happened. I remember hours later when I got home he still obviously did not understand what had happened. Unlike Isaac, Alyssa did understand what happened so she did the sobbing. While I really felt sorry for the death of Stormy I felt even more sorry for the pain that Alyssa was feeling.

I understand now why Laura felt so deeply in her experience. I’m hoping that I was able to say and do the right things to help Alyssa process and work through her grief. Time will tell but I am encouraged that she was able to go to sleep tonight without too much trouble.

Categories
life

There’s a Mouse in the House

Before the title causes anyone to get too excited let me quickly clarify that this is not actually a mouse story but “rodent” does not rhyme with house. Also, I should mention that “rodent” does not refer to a wild animal. Lastly, for anyone who remembers our adventure with Moonlight, this does not include tearing apart any walls.

Currently in our house we have 16 gerbils – which is seven more than I would ever have planned on. We have two parents who occasionally have a litter of around five pups and we have two gerbils from an early litter that we allowed Savannah to keep. Two weeks ago our mother gerbil, Sweetie, gave birth to a litter of seven pups a few days earlier than we had expected so we had not sold the five gerbils from the previous litter. We hurriedly moved them to a separate cage just before she gave birth so those five little gerbils are under Savannah’s care right now.

This morning as I was getting ready in the dark I saw a rodent shadow cross our bedroom door and I knew we had a problem. I went into Savannah’s room and looked in the cage to discover that one boy and both girls from that barely weaned litter had escaped in the night.

Savannah and I soon found the boy, Cecil, under a dresser in her room but he escaped past us and got into the master bedroom. We found him again behind a bookshelf in the master bedroom but he escaped again. In the process we woke Laura up.

The three of us stopped while Savannah said a prayer asking that none of the gerbils would be in the walls or the vents and that we would recover them safely. Within a minute Savannah heard a noise behind our refrigerator. The three of us looked and saw one of the girls. We carefully surrounded the fridge and I pulled it out allowing Laura to catch our runaway.

Savannah and I decided to put some food out to entice the others. Savannah put a pile on the floor of the master bedroom and I placed some food near their cages hoping they would return toward home. Another minute later Laura walked into the master bedroom to see the other girl scamper away from the food. Laura and I worked to remove obstacles such as the recliner she ran toward and soon we had her trapped in one corner under our bed. When Laura moved the last item in that corner we saw that both of our remaining escapees were hiding there. I tried to surround them but Cecil got under my arm again – maybe we should call him Houdini. I caught the other girl and passed her to Laura. Again we heard Cecil behind the bookcase in our room. This time I was able to catch him.

So after half an hour of excitement we had all our gerbils back without even waking the other kids when we searched their room early in the chase. At 6:00 AM it was time for a prayer of gratitude.

P.S. Despite the date, this story is no joke.