good-bye

i miss you, snarf. i miss getting a huff every time i touched you. i miss feeling you relax when you realized it was only me. i miss our daily 9:00pm cuddle and feeling the content sigh as i rubbed your bum. i miss how you would stop running, then get off your wheel and patiently wait for me to clean it. i miss seeing you cuddled into jamie's neck every saturday morning.

i am so sorry snarf. sorry that this had to happen to you. sorry that we didn't have more time together. and most of all, sorry that i didn't find you sooner so life would have been better for you. i don't think life was easy before we met: mesh wheel; light 24 hours a day; no good hiding spots; no insects; water bottle that didn't work right and worst: an owner who seemed scared of you. i don't think you even knew what a cuddle was before we met.

i hope with all my heart you know how hard i tried to create a calm, loving home for you. i was so glad when you began to trust me. that day in the vet's office where you ran towards my foot i fell completely in love with you. i never stopped trying to earn your love and trust. that's why you always had a mealie close by and a clean, warm hedgie bag and lots of stuff to do. the day you somehow found your way onto our bed all by your teeny little self, i knew you felt like you were at home. that's why, every morning, i let you decide where you would spend your day. i can still see you scurrying around the livingroom and bedroom, trying to decide.

you were so brave. i knew you had trouble trusting me but you let me hold you and cuddle you, anyway. you let me bathe you and your poopy feet; you let me trim your nails; you let me care for me. you trusted me to care for you. you brought so much to my life for such a little guy and in so short a time. i learned that trust doesn't happen automatically - it must be earned. and that all the love in the world doesn't replace good basic care. and if you stop and really pay attention, you can learn a lot about someone. and that a heart can be broken very easily, even by a teeny little creature who always huffed and always had poopy feet.

i will never forget how tiny and frail you felt just before they took you away for the last time. you will always be in my heart. you're my forever 'heart hog' and this will always be your forever home. i love you, little dude. i miss you, little rotter. good-bye, snarf.

what the heck is a 'sumo'?

i don't know what it is but we have one. right beside MY cage, too! and this 'sumo' thing stinks and stomps and is always sniffling the air when i'm around.


the sumo who is squatting in a cage next to mine is definitely some kind of animal and it smells vaguely familiar.  kinda stinky.  and it's a baby cuz i hear cindy saying that she has to remember this sumo character is still a baby. at first i thought sumo was a hedgehog but there's NO way any hedgehog can make that much noise just walking. let alone a BABY hedgehog.


as long as my life doesn't change for the worse, sumo can do whatever he? she? wants.  i thought at first that cindy would be too busy with this new 'baby' so she would leave me alone. no such luck: she still wakes me up and weighs me every morning and forces me to endure petting and squishing, then at night, i have to put up with the same treatment. the upside is cindy has been singing to the sumo, too. it hasn't stopped her from singing to me, unfortunately, but it helps to know that someone else is suffering as much as i am.


i will be watching and listening for clues about this sumo thing. i wonder if he could be the 'addition' cindy had been going on about a few weeks ago? what the heck is an 'addition'? does this mean i get a bigger cage? it's all so confusing. luckily, i can escape the madness with a nap.

i am two years old!

i am now two...more or less. this is my third home and no one ever kept track before. this must be a big deal to cindy cuz she's been all soppy and cuddly and was singing some goofy song. yech! if she tries to make me wear a stupid hat i am going to bite her. and i just know i am going to have a bath later...cindy gasped when she saw my feet. a bath...on my birthday...how unfair is that?

i don't feel older. i feel 'quieter' - if that makes any sense. i feel like i can just wander around and just be me. i don't have to worry about food or water and i can even choose where i sleep during the day (the big bed in the other room is my favorite, even tho' i have a b*tch of a time getting up there). my home never gets that 'lived in' feel cuz cindy always takes the poop out. why...why...why? i like it there. tho' i do like that she keeps my wheel so clean - who wants to run through poopy pee all night?

my life before cindy was not quite as peaceful: i had the same home but it was right beside a TV that was always on. and there were so many people around - all. of. the. time. a big hot, bright light was shining down on me 24 hours a day. i like dark, thank you very much; my eyes get all squinty if it's too bright. and there was nowhere good to hide: the log i was in had a big hole in the top, so even that was too bright. my food was okay but the seeds kept getting stuck in my mouth. there was this little white wheel that tasted awful and made me sooooo thirsty. don't get me started about drinking out of one of those hangy-bottle things. best of all, and i don't know why: my skin doesn't itch any more. i hardly scratch ever.

i think i feel quieter cuz i don't have to spend any time worrying about little stuff, like food, water and shelter, so i can spend time on more important things like finding a good place to burrow or searching for crickets. yes, i have to put up with cindy's constant presence: petting...cuddling...cooing...trying to touch my feet and my ears and my tummy...and baths...always the baths...but the trade-off is fair: not having to worry about a full tummy is payment enough. happy birthday to me.

Freedom!!!

i wish i would've thought of this sooner. i ran away from home a few days ago. cindy put me in my favorite sleeping bag on the floor and normally i will fall asleep and refuse to move for the whole day, if i can. but on friday, i decided i wanted to sleep in the human bed, so i waited until cindy wasn't looking, then ran as fast as i could into the bedroom and scaled up the side of the bed using the sheets. it was hard work and i almost fell but it was worth it. i had the whole glorious bed to myself...it was wonderful. i got to squish myself between crisp, clean sheets under a heavy blanket...hedgie heaven.

well, it WAS heaven until cindy kept calling my name over and over and over...and the banging and clunking around while she rearranged the entire household (i guess she had been looking for me for a while)...she made it very hard to sleep. finally, i couldn't stand it any longer and huffed at her when she moved the blanket. i thought for sure she'd march me back home but no: she just covered me again and left me to snooze. i was shocked. and happy.

since then, every morning when i am done wheeling, cindy puts me in bed with her. i'm not happy about sharing the bed but she usually leaves after an hour or so. besides, it's pretty big, so i just crawl into a corner where the sheets are the tightest and sleep away the day.

i think my bid for freedom has taught cindy a much needed lesson cuz she has finally stopped grabbing at me whenever i walk near the edge of the bed or couch. she was always freaking out when i would stroll over to check out the view. what does she think? that i'm going to walk right off the edge? jeez. you'd have to be a special kind of human stupid to do THAT.

i am very much enjoying my new freedom: i spend my days in cindy's bed and, if i squirm around too much, cindy helps me get comfy in my sleeping bag in the livingroom...either way, i am happy: i am free!!

i am sad

i lost two friends this week. i never met them but feel like i knew them through stories and pictures.

can you be friends with someone you've never met?

i've been thinking about this. i guess it depends on what you mean by 'friends'. according to the big fat dictionary cindy uses, a friend is someone 'with whom one has a bond of mutual affection, typically one exclusive of sexual or family relations.' i guess mr oxford would say that we were friends.

friends are hard for me to find: i don't get out much. i stay at home a lot. and cindy says i am melodramatic and i don't know what that means but i think it makes it hard for me to make friends. so if i accidentally stumble upon someone who makes me laugh or cry or wonder how the world can be so awesome and unfair at the same time, i consider them a friend. i look forward to hearing what they think and how they feel and what makes them mad and sad and glad. i like to share stories from my life and feel understood. i want to care about someone and have them care about me. i like getting to know others and their lives and hopes and fears and what makes them different from everyone else. i like to make others laugh and want them to be happier because i was there; even if it was only for a couple minutes. i may never speak some of these things out loud but that doesn't make them any less true or hearfelt. words i say are gone in a second but words i write could be there forever, maybe that makes them more true and heartfelt?

can you really lose someone you've never met?

there was no place to look to find the 'real' answer. i just know they mattered to me and i cared about them and now i am sad because they're gone. so...'yes'.

my human is so cute!

i haven't really had much time to be a 'blog hog' lately...we've been busy. cindy's family visited...there were so many of them, including two smaller-size humans who were curious about me and wanted to touch me but they wouldn't sit still for more than two seconds so they scared me and i huffed and they jumped then i jumped and on it went. and they smell different.

the weather is changing here. i can't really see much from inside but it 'feels' different. cindy has been taking me with her when she does the laundry and gets the mail. it's my first visit to Outside. it's cold there. cindy keeps me smothered in fleece but i can still feel the cold. it smells sooooooo good, tho'. when we get to the laundry room, i get to wander around inside the big basket and give that world a sniff, too. it doesn't smell as good as Outside but it still makes my nose twitchy and excited.

every time i go to sleep and wake up, there's a new rock in my home. honestly, where do all these rocks come from? pretty soon i won't be able to turn around without bumping into a rock. it's like living in a quarry. the good thing is more rocks mean more crickets and that means more crunchy goodness. cindy still thinks she is stumping me with her pathetic cricket-hiding ability. she's not. but i try not to make it too obvious and save a couple crickets for after she goes to sleep.

i noticed something funny the last couple days: if cindy is upset she takes it out on me. she constantly comes over and picks me up just long enough to hold me, then she puts me back down. and she has been spending way too much time with me - i spend so much time on her stomach, i feel like she's attached to me. if i have to listen to one more episode of 'Mad Men' i think i will take up smoking. i think all of this extra attention has something to do with other hedgehogs and their humans and someone being sick. i'm not sure what that means - i just know i want to be left in peace.

i have to say as annoying as cindy is, she feeds me well. i still LOVE my new diet: smelly, mushy stuff and crackly, crunchy stuff all mixed in. it's too bad there's vegetables mixed in but ever since i ate around them one time, she cuts them up so small, some always get in my mouth. still, it's nice having something different every day or two. and there is always bananas! i love the creamy, sugary goodness of bananas...mmmmm... and i have my human so well trained: when she gets up, she always comes by home to see me so i make sure i am standing beside my dish and staring at it, looking hungry. that always gets me extra bananas.

isn't that cute?

hedgehog poetry

i'm not really into poetry but i really like this one:

He ambles along like a walking pincushion,
Stops and curls up like a chestnut burr.
He's not worried because he's so little.
Nobody is going to slap him around.

it was written by a ninth-century chinese poet, Chu Chen Pu. he was writing about one of me!!!

the ninth century...wow...that was like even before cindy was born.

a few of my favorite things

some seem to think all hedgehogs do is eat, poop and sleep. that is pretty much it, i suppose, but we do notice things and enjoy some things more than others. 

i love the smell of 'outside'...cindy puts me close to the screen in the kitchen so i can get a whiff and it smells wonderful! i have never been to this 'outside' place and she only holds me there for a few seconds - i'm guessing cuz it's kinda cool out 'there'. i hope i can visit it more sometime.

i love weekend naps...as soon as i am done wheeling, cindy scoops me up and puts me on a gigantic heating pad called 'jamie'. i sleep with there for a loooong time, usually tucked in somewhere, it's so warm and cozy. i don't even mind the strange noises that come out of his mouth and some are kinda loud and scary! cindy says we snore at each other.

i sleep in cindy's shirt, too...she pulls up the bottom to make me a pocket and she's so warm but she moves so much!! jeez. jamie is like a warm rock...napping with cindy is like sleeping in a canoe!

i love the crunch of beetles and crickets. i love it. anything that makes that noise when you bite down on it has to be good! mealworms are good, too, such a creamy inside but they just don't have that satsifying crunch when you chomp down on them. no ooze.

i love that every day i wake up to something different: cindy moves stuff around and hides food in weird spots (grossly under-estimating my hunting skills). this week she added some rocks. last week it was plants. makes me wonder what will happen next. the first thing i do when i wake up is take a tour of my home to see what's new...then i go back to sleep. it's never that exciting.

i love the 'cowboy dinner' catfood cindy gave me. once. she says it's too rich for me and it did make me barf once but i think that was because i ate it all at once and couldn't stop because it was soooo good. now she ruins it by mixing it with stuff like vegetables and that dry, sawdusty Sunseed (blech!) and boring chicken so now, if i want the yummy goodness of 'cowboy dinner', i have to eat all the healthy stuff too. i still like it but not as much as i did before.

i love my food dish, too. i can sit on the side and hang my bum out and relax while i am eating. it is so much better than having to stick my chin up all the time.

my water dish is great, too - no silly metal pokey thing hanging up so high i strained my neck every time i had a drink. and i always cut my tongue on the thingy. cindy watched me try to get a drink out of it once and it disappeared the next day. instead, there was a shiny green dish in its place - much better.

and i loooooooves my fleece....cindy makes me little bags out of fleece to hide and sleep in.  it's so warm and cozy. i like nice clean corners, tho', so i won't sleep in them until cindy gets rid of the little bit of extra fleece that sticks out when you sew it. i need to be able to get my nose right into the deepest corner. how can i do that if there's a bunch of fleece stuffed in there? i prefer my bags finished with a blind stitch.

see? i don't spend all of my time pooping and sleeping. i check things out. i think about stuff.

how i see things

this is where i live...it's a cage. a nice cage, i guess, as cages go. but it is still a cage.

note the built in 'hedgie-ladder' and lack of a cover. cindy is convinced i am going to be AWOL  one morning...but where would i go? the humans have secured the place like fort knox...no nooks...not a cranny... what would be the point? and most importantly, how would i get crickets?

and this is the view from my cage:

that first pic is where i see cindy most. she spends a LOT of time in there!!! i didn't know she had legs for the first month! the second pic shows the big freakish fish house. i'm glad they're way over there! and this one is where my humans watch Monk:

i guess some of my friends in the wild might say i'm a sell-out cuz i am enjoying my life in a cage but i think i've got it pretty good. my  food is delivered to me so i don't have to spend all night trying to catch it. cindy's so cute - she even 'hides' crickets so i have to hunt for them! i play along and pretend i can't smell exactly where they are. i always have a warm place to sleep and cindy insists on keeping me and my home clean.  very annoying.  my home is safe from predators and there's always a human around if i run into trouble (like the time i tipped over my food dish when i was trying to move it and all of my beloved banana was trapped under it. that was awful!). not having to worry about food and shelter frees up a lot of time so i can spend more time doing what i really love: napping.

things i think about when cindy isn't bugging me

i am the Monk of the hedgie world.


if you're not familiar with Monk, he's the star of a tv series of the same name that ran a few years ago. adrian monk is a former police detective who, in addition to having OCD and being socially inept, has phobias about everything. my humans discovered Monk on netflix and have been watching it lately. as my home is close to the tv, i have been 'watching' it...or at least listening to it...as well.


i can relate to him. painfully. although my fears aren't as numerous (i don't get out that much) they are certainly as debilitating: they are paralyzing. when i am scared, i cannot think, respond or react except to bury my head and huff a blue streak. most of my fear centres around sudden movements or shadows or sounds. some would say this makes sense: i am considered 'prey' in some circles, after all. but even to me my fear seems overly-dramatic: i huff-pop-jump at everything, then bury my head. if cindy would relent and let me have sand, my head would be buried in it. i know this goes well beyond survival instinct: there's nothing trying to eat me around here. (even the huge fish live in a tank they can't possibly get out of and why would they? my humans are their slaves! all the fish do is eat and poop.) granted, the sight of those jaw-like nail clippers would make anyone want to poop on the spot but is my reaction not a touch melodramatic?

i am Monk. and i don't know why.

it's a hog's life

i must admit my life is pretty good. most of you probably think you know me from whatever cindy balbs about on HHC but she exaggerates: no one is that grumpy or sleeps that much. please.


cindy is absolutely obsessed with my diet so i actually eat better than my humans do. i had ground beef last night, with vegetables and some sort of mushy smelly wonderful stuff from a can....mmmm....it's funny: that's my fave yet cindy gags when she puts it in my bowl. weirdo. and she finally bought bananas!! about time. i could smell them (i think she cooked them??!!) but i have been waiting and waiting...i ate my little face off last night.


i get a lot of awesome insects, too. cindy always leaves them for me to find after the sun goes out. she thinks she's smart but really, you'd have to be a sepcial kind of stupid to not be able to find a cricket, right? i love the crunch of crickets but love the creaminess of mealies...they are both my favorites.


cindy is also fanatical about my cage being clean. verrrrry annoying. she's always picking up poop or scrubbing something with that smelly spray (it reminds me of pickles). i spend all night making my cage a home and she comes a long...every morning...and wrecks it. and the better my sleeping bag smells, the more cindy wants to remove it. she does it all the time - she picks me up and makes a face and suddenly i am in a new bag: no poop, no smell - how do i even know it's really mine??


and she's always rearranging everything...the lastest is fake plants and she's been threatening to add some slate rocks - something about trimming my nails. (heh heh...it's been six months and i still won't let her touch my feet. contrary to popular belief, you can curl up in water...heh heh). i go to sleep in one spot, settled perfectly in my perfectly arranged cage and i wake up 16 hours later and everything is different: there's no poop...there are now plants and rocks...i keep walking into stuff. sheesh.


but still...i guess i've got it pretty good. it's always the same toasty temperature...i can hear a click just before the sun rises/sets every day (a little spooky, actually) and it's always at the exact. same. time. weird...i have not one but two wheels and both are pretty sweet. i like the slanty one more cuz my poop and pee fly everywhere when i get the wheel rockin' - it's awesome to watch!!


cindy, i call her the chief human, is obviously the one in charge of my life.  she gets to do all the fun stuff like cooking and cleaning. she also makes me take baths on days when my cage is really messy. i always know when i'm going to get a bath by the way she says good morning to me: if she swears, it's bath day. <sigh> i HATE bath days. jamie is second-in-command but all he does is let me sleep on him. he's a great heating pad.


i can't really ask for anything more. i always feel safe and cared for and, besides my human's annoying habits of cleaning and constantly trying to engage me in conversation, i don't have any major complaints. i guess you could say it's a hog's life.

a little about me

i am a hedgehog.


i am covered in prickly little quills that can do some major damage if i am scared.


i scare very easily.


these two things can make me very hard to love. which is too bad cuz once you get to know me, i can be quite lovable. but you have to get past the pokes. that's why i secretly love cindy (one of my humans). i have hissed, spit, huffed and poked at her...i have tried to bite her for no good reason (she was just trying to help)...when she talks to me i huff...when she tries to touch me i jump...i have made her bleed many times and have given her a nasty rash.


she still loves me.


there's a lesson here, i'm sure.