This little puff ball is Glorfindel! A few weeks ago, I saw that The Pipsqueakery was getting in a ton of Syrian Hamsters from a pet store that quickly got in over their heads through their negligence which allowed for the hamsters to breed over and over again while at the store. Anyways, I immediately applied to adopt one and a week later was approved. It took a couple weeks to make arrangements for me to travel to Bloomington to pick out a hamster, but a couple weeks ago I made the trip. I had hoped I could finally get a little grey one (in March of 2020 I almost had arrangements made to get a little grey one from them, but then there was a travel ban due to the pandemic, and that's when I instead adopted Fili and Kili from the Fort Wayne ACC). There weren't any grey ones presented to me, but there was a bin of these identical looking golden, long-haired baby boys. Admittedly I was a bit overwhelmed because I couldn't see any differences between them as they all ran around. But as I sat with them and chatted with the awesome adoption coordinator, Amy, I began to notice subtle differences among the boys. For example, there was one who had a comically tiny face for his body and another who the colors seemed more muted than his brothers. After a while, a few of the hams started to dig in the bedding and go to sleep while some others began to tussle and play with each other. That's when I noticed one by the food bowl that wasn't eating, but just standing there staring at me with his hand perched on the bowl.
I reached down to pet him and he just squished down a bit, but stayed put and didn't run off. I knew that's the one I wanted. The first couple times I picked him up, he managed to fly out of my hands. But the third time, I got him safely into my travel carrier. I gave him some juicy veggies and fruit for the ride home, but he wasn't interested in the treats and quickly moved to the tissue box for a nap.
The drive home was longer than getting there due to more construction, but we eventually made it, and as far as I could tell, he slept the whole way. When I first tried to remove him from the carrier, it was clear that the ride had been a wee bit overwhelming for the poor little guy as he just lay frozen in the tissue box. I eventually got him to go into his new home, which is a 40 gallon aquarium. He quickly ended up in his new sand bath which he seemed to instantly fall in love with. But after a couple of minutes of digging and rolling around in the sand, he promptly plopped down and froze as if he was remembering that terrifying ride to this big, new home. Eventually he snapped out of his daze and began to explore his new home while pausing at times to observe those watching him (which was me and the cats).
When I had asked Amy how old he was, she said 1-2 months, so I'm gonna assume he was 6 weeks old and use that to track his age. What makes Glorfindel especially interesting is that he (along with his brothers, dad, uncles, etc.) were all neutered at The Pipsqueakery. I believe they were also in the process of spaying the females, but so many of the females came to them with babies or were already pregnant from living together at the pet store. Anyways, fixing hamsters is incredibly uncommon still, but I believe and hope that the work the Pipsqueakery is doing will be instrumental in being a catalyst for this becoming more popular. There are a lot of interesting implications to be explored with this practice. For now, my curiosity is mostly in seeing if fixing hamsters will increase the average lifespan as it is already known to do so for your typical pets like cats and dogs. I've always felt honored when my hamsters make it to 2 years old as that is considered quite old, but maybe a fixed hamster would be more likely to live to be 3 years old. Time will tell!
The name Glorfindel is of course from Tolkien's writings. My husband suggested a cute, non-Tolkien name for this little guy, but I just couldn't break our tradition. Also as a side note, I'd love if Glorfindel would make an appearance in Amazon's Rings of Power! We'll have to wait and see on that too. Anyways, welcome to the family, Glorfindel!
If you want to adopt a fluffy little guy like Glorfindel from The Pipsqueakery or would like to donate to help the Pipsqueakery continue their work as a rescue and sanctuary for animals in need, be sure to check out their website by going to: https://www.thepipsqueakery.org/
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