Sick hamster-large lump, closed eye and wet tail to top it off

[Skeever]

Condolences.

[DrKMcK]

I am so sorry you lost Apollo. You and your family will miss him so much. I am glad there is another hamster there. I have found that my other hamsters have helped me deal with the loss of a hammy. Play well at the Bridge Apollo

[Benbo1]

It's Benbo1 My Teddy-Syrian Bo,is struggling also? But we still dont know if theres a tumor? I wanted to tell you about a anti-inflamatory called Metacam. It seems to work well! Plus,Bo's vet said that it or its sister formula for dogs,has prooven to shrink tumors! But for future use,its great to have on hand! It does kill pain for hammies!! I wish i had been online sooner,& i feel for all hamster owners! When i lost Benbo i knew that in order to prevent,or make a sick Hammie better. I must research & pay close attention to them(future hammies) daily! When Bo stopped eating! I was abke to hand him a fuji apple sliver and he'd eat it! Also broccoli,baby spinach,cooked white rice(if no luck,try with a lil butter) cheese nip crackers,& goldfish crackers! All tuings i listed are things most Hamsters love!! Yogurt is good,but not with wet tail! Oasis we tail drops work if caught early.Again so sorry!! At least he knew you loved him!! R.I.P Apollo

[starshme]

Thank you to all. We had a hamster funeral in our village on Tuesday and my daughter visited the last two days and put flowers down and talked to Apollo. He was definitely loved and is sorely missed. My heart goes out to all of you who have lost hamsters to illness. (or any other way, of course)

TT is doing great, thanks for the encouragement. It will be a while before I can think of getting another hamster, especially here but I hope in time I will be ready. For now, TT is a source of comfort and all your messages have been helpful as well.

[Skeever]

You'll know when the time is right, even if it catches you unawares.

The Raouche place? just got in a bunch of pea sized Syrians, and my reason flew out the window. Seems the guy who works there is somehow involved or responsible for the rodents, so the age and other info is fairly correct. I did have to correct the sudden need to line rodent cages with cedar and pine stuff tho ...

It's odd. We get them knowing a round about life span, but they can never live long enough. What sounded convenient when we get a new pet, suddenly becomes cruel.

But it's the way things are, as you know. Hard really to know about what love and care really means if pain didn't make it obvious in the end. Glad you had the funeral and can take the grief process in over time. I wonder, when I someday have to, in the big dirty city, what I would do when a hammy passes.

One of the gifts they leave though, is that kind of one day is infinitely long in their world, and they teach us how to make it infinitely long in ours.

Wa salaam

[Hammies]

That is so sad, you did your best for wee Apollo and he will always know that xoxo

[starshme]

Skeever, it's so true - when I "rescued" them from an awful pet shop I was thinking that even if the kids didn't take care of them, as they were promising, that the life span was manageable. I wasn't signing up for 10 to 15 years of responsibility for a pet that they had grown tired of caring for. Little did I know that I would be wishing for even 4 or 5 years. ;(

We were lucky to have access to a place to bury him. I remember a friend I had in school who lived on Beacon Hill and had no yard at all. I slept over and asked her about the 20 or so coffee cans on the shelves in her bathroom and she nonchalantly told me that they were her hamsters that had died. She would bury them in cans and kept them there. I kind of freaked out over the idea at the time, it seemed really creepy. I'm glad it didn't come down to that. I was thinking of asking the vet if they cremate pets here but in the end, this is much better.

Thank you, Hammies as well.

[Skeever]

Agreed. It's nice to have a place the kids can visit. I'm guessing they would offer cremation here, but....

The cans thing still freaks me out. A freezer, maybe? How did she manage that one???

The thought that the clock is ticking though, with small pets....tends to make me value the time more, if that makes sense. Which no doubt makes the mourning that much harder?

[starshme]

I honestly don't know how she controlled the odor issue and I was a little to freaked out to ask her. Years later and I remember the moment like it was yesterday - my 16 year old self acting like it wasn't nothing but a thing while internally thinking, "Nope, nope, nope."

[Skeever]

Well, yeah? it reeks (no pun intended) of Dexter?

LOL