Bringing Hamlet Home

January 24, 2013

Having recently moved to living on my own, I’ve discovered that fish don’t make the best companions for daily life. However, in choosing a new pet, I ran into a series of problems. I’m not a dog person. I’m allergic to cats. I don’t like the smell of hamsters. My apartment complex would not let me have a reptile, and birds make far too much noise. It seemed to be a dismal plight – I was doomed not to have a companion.

However, I one day stumbled across something about a person that had a pet hedgehog. The idea fascinated me, and the very first thing I did was to Google them. The second, of course, was to log on to the Library catalog and look for books about owning them as pets. Most people don’t realize that the Library owns quite a few of the pet books that cost an insane amount of money at the pet store. To give you an idea, MCPL owns about 2,500 nonfiction books about dogs. They even had a few books about hedgehogs, despite how exotic and obscure of a pet that they are.

The more I read about them, the more that I realized that a hedgehog was the perfect pet for me. The African Pygmy Hedgehog weighs about a pound when fully grown and is only a little longer than a dollar bill. They are quiet, as usually the loudest sound they make is a hiss. Hedgehogs can actually be litter-trained, and their primary diet consists of cat food. They can be kept in a cage or can be allowed to free roam the house, and they are most active from late evening to mid-night. A hedgehog does not require an excessive amount of attention, but they adjust to human interaction well. The best part, however, is that they are hypoallergenic.

After getting approval from my landlord, I am proud to announce that this month my little reverse pinto hedgehog named Hamlet joined the family. Thanks MCPL for helping me bring Hamlet home.

Heather G.
Oak Grove Branch