We got Bump at the same time as Timmy. We got Dusty and Scruff the day before and Dusty kindly guilt tripped us into going back for the other two of the foursome. We'd wanted a pair, we knew more than two was asking for a lot more potential problems, but they wanted to be a foursome so we let them. They turned out to be a lovely, fairly stable foursome for quite a while.
This is one of my favourite early pictures, Bump was the only one who didn't have her head stuck in something in it
The girls had an interesting relationship, for months Bump was the top-ham and the dominant ham in the foursome. She didn't seem to want to be, she just always sort of went with the flow and was happy whatever happened. It was best for her to be in charge and that was fine by her, she just liked being with her friends. We realised they'd all been mis-sexed and were girls rather than boys, but it didn't change much. They were happy and that was what mattered.
Then one day Dusty decided she wanted to be top-ham and was a bit mean to Bump, poor Bump didn't mind losing her place as top-ham, she was just really upset that Dusty had been mean to her. We happened to watch it happen and poor Bump just spent the evening sat on her own in a house, Timmy and Scruff both tried to comfort her but all she wanted was Dusty to be friends again. After a few hours she started to move on and Dusty gradually realised Bump just wanted to be friends and let it happen. Once they were friends again Bump was happy again.
In December Bump found a new favourite toy during playtime
Then we had Christmas, the girls were still a very happy foursome at the time.
Bump enjoyed everything, one of my favourite photos of her was always this one - where she's just leaving one of their new houses
Her favourite toy was always a wheel though, she even slept in them sometimes. One day I tried to photograph it and accidentally woke her up a bit...
On pancake day we made treats, pancakes and little pancake-mix cakes decorated with hamster treats. Bump loved them all, but my favourite photo of the day was this one of her with Timmy and Scruff
The girls stayed together for their first birthday, but were later separated. We weren't sure who had bitten who, so we split into two pairs. After hours of deliberation we decided to put Bump with Timmy, we believed they'd be friends for life and we were right. Timmy developed fur loss but they stayed together anyway, happy and enjoying life together. We suspect that Bump took on her role of dominant-hamster again, but it didn't really matter - she and Timmy were the best of friends and nothing really mattered to them apart from being together. They were happy to do their own things, but loved having the company to cuddle up with and to spend time together. Bump loved Timmy but she also loved to know what we were up to, so if we opened a door we often found Bump's head poking out over it.
In December, Timmy passed away. She and Bump were separated the night before, Timmy had become severly ill overnight and Bump had bitten her. We don't blame Bump, her cagemate was dying and she didn't know what to do. Bump definetly missed Timmy once she'd gone. In time she got over it, we rearranged the cage to distract her and we think that helped. Bump did age a lot after losing Timmy though, she was still happy but started to show a lot of signs of age and started to sleep a lot more too. She was still more than up for treats, and we still saw her use the entire cage when she was awake. This was one of the last photos I ever took of her.
Recently she'd got even less active, we knew we probably didn't have much longer, we checked on her by making sure she'd visited her food bowl each night. Still saw her up and really happy just a few days ago though. When I think of Bump I remember her face poking over the edge of the hammock as if to say "Why've you been worried?"
Today we found that Bump hadn't touched her food last night, we found her in her underground food store, it looks like she got up for a snack and just fell asleep when she got there. She passed peacefully and happily, leaving me wondering if she knew and just wanted to have snacks ready for when she was reunited with Timmy.
Play well at the bridge Bump, I know you'll be glad to be back with Timmy and I bet you'll like to see Scruff again too. We'll stay looking after Dusty for you
What a wonderful picture memorial for Bump. The whole story was lovely and so were these 4 little girls. I'm so glad you took all of them home that day. So sorry you've lost Bump.
Bump, reunited with Timmy at last
rest in peace sweetie!!
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