Sad news

Which a majority of you won't care over much about (other than a general 'oh, that sucks' reaction, which isn't saying you're horrible people, but more that you don't have a personal connection to this).

Between the hours of 12 and 9:30AM today, me and my girlfriend lost our Chinese Dwarf hamster Olaf Olafsdottir (originally Olaf Olafsson, until we discovered her lack of testicles) to an unidentified, sanguine malady. Up until yesterday, she had seemed fine, until Katie noticed Olaf sitting and not moving much, her eyes nearly shut. We noticed a small amount of blood around her, and a few spots throughout her cage.

While Olaf was just a hamster, she and her sister Ultra-Peepi (go watch Invader Zim and you'll know why) were our first pets, owned and kept autonomous from our parents, and as such will always be important to us. We bought them 2nd September 2008, and due to hamsters only being sold after weaning (which is 1 month after birth), we estimate she was very close to being 2 years old, a good age for any small rodent.

Run free in Hamsthalla, Little One


For Olaf; Finntroll - Galgasang (Gallows Song)

Aww I'm really sorry to hear that. I have 2 rats and I totally dread anything happening to them so I can totally imagine how you must feel. I hope Ultra-Peepi wont miss her sister too much x

I love animals and know it really hurts to lose a pet, I'm so sorry, but at least she had a good life.

Cheers guys.

I'm sure Peepi will be fine, they've been separated since Christmas 2008 (they started scrapping about the time I took them home for Christmas holidays). If you buy animals from Pets at Home, never listen to their 'advice' on keeping the animals, they're talking out of their collective, corporate arsehole. They sexed Olaf and Peepi as male (hence Olaf) and advertised them as a breed of hamster that like to be kept in groups. When they started fighting, I looked at breeders' websites and it came up that male Chinese Dwarf hamsters usually can be kept in pairs/groups, but females certainly can't...

Oh god yeah, Pets at Home are aboslutely terrible. They generally have no clue about the animals they have there, they told me my rats were males (which they quite clearly weren't, rat gender is incredibly obvious XD). And they buy their animals from breeding farms which keep their animals in horrible conditions

Glad to hear Peepi is ok though Once I can figure out how to make space for it I plan on getting the ratties a bigger cage and some more friends, if anything happens to one of them I don't want the other to be left on her own. Also I just want more rats XD I totally recommend them for anyone thinking about getting a small pet ^__^

Sucks to hear that! i've had hamsters before and i know how much they can become apart of the family!

its weird cus my pets at home is generally quite good... maybe its because all the animal care students get jobs there

I know a lass who worked at one in Nottingham, but quit as she said they were one of the worst employers she has ever known.

And yeah, chinese dwarf hamsters are easy to determine sex on as well.

I want to get one or two bearded dragons at some point. Shouldn't have mentioned it to my parents however as they seemed to think that I was insane for considering it as 'it's unnatural to have them as pets' (which begs the question as to why they've let me have hamsters and fish, and we've always had a family dog...).