This morning, as I was getting breakfast ready for the kids, I realized that I wasn't hearing Cheddar on his rather noisy wheel. Usually, he has a little bit of exercise right around the time the kids are zooming around the house in the pre-breakfast minutes. And then he usually stands on the top of his igloo so that Kelly will notice him, and take him out (and maybe into the kitchen for a vegetable treat).
Ruh-roh.
Yup. It was true. Some time in the night, Cheddar had gone off to that great habitrail in the sky.
He's the shortest-lived of our hamsters, not counting Buckwheat and Zydeco, who arrived in our house already sporting a nasty case of wet tail. But he had a good life.
Maybe he was older than we thought he was when we adopted him last February?
He was always a bit of a scaredy-cat. Maybe it was his heart.
Or maybe he was just over come with his unrequited love for S'more, and when she 'moved away' (to Kelly's classroom), he just died of loneliness. Forget about the fact that if Cheddar and S'more lived in the same cage, she would've killed him, females being all territorial like that.
He did have a great life with us, though. He even got to go to the races.
We won't mention that he came in dead last. He tried. And that's all that counts.
Just last week, he was looking fit as a fiddle.
Poor little guy.
And poor Kelly. She pulled herself together to go to school, but it's one of those things where little triggers will probably set her off all day. I just emailed to let her teacher know that she's not going through some horrid hormonal surge or anything.
You were a great pet, Cheddar.
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