At the ripe age of 31, I got my first pet ever.. thought I’d start off ‘easy’ with a hamster.. boy was I in for some learning.

Though small, that little furball taught me a lot of things. .. Care, love and respect for a little being that spoke a different language, led a different life, had such vastly different needs, yet shared the commonality of an existence on this world.

I don’t know that I would have gotten the same lessons had I owned a pet in my younger years. Or maybe I would have.. but felt a lesser impact of epiphany.

Pandora shared her light with us for a year and a half and then crossed over the Rainbow Bridge. I was a mess that day and took the day off from work. The little ones can get ill so very suddenly and because they are so small, successful surgery/cures are rare.

Their lifespans are short. That’s one of the most difficult things about hamsters to deal with. IMHO they are not exactly the ideal pets for children either. You DO have to make time for supervision, cage cleaning, playtime, etc etc and they are nocturnal. If you’re planning on putting the cage in a bedroom, you have to either be deaf as a post or be able to sleep through everything.

I now have a dog. I’ve found that I much prefer living with an animal that doesn’t have to be in a cage, so I doubt that I’ll get another hamster again. But I’ll always miss Pandora.