Hamster resurrection
‘Dead’ pet was hibernating ... so check before you bury yours!
STIFF, cold and still, beloved pet Fudge looked like he’d gone to the big hamster cage in the sky. Owner Lisa Goodman feared the worst and was preparing to bury the rodent when she tried one last effort to revive him.
Warming the tiny animal with tissues and a hot water bottle, she returned after a quick cuppa to find the hamster had moved – and realised he wasn’t dead... but hibernating. Mrs Goodman and daughter Lillie, 12, were thrilled – but quickly realised they should warn other owners not to assume their apparently lifeless pets had died.
Her Facebook post was shared by more than 200,000 people – many fearing they mistakenly buried their hamsters alive.
Mrs Goodman, 38, from Oxfordshire, thinks Fudge may have gone into a rare deep sleep because the temperature dropped in the room he was kept in. She wrote: ‘Please don’t just assume your hamster is dead. We keep our hamster in the sitting room of our house, it’s obviously got a bit too cold in there overnight so we will be moving him elsewhere.’
Her comments caused panic among some animal lovers. Jodiee Louise Jennings wrote about her hamster: ‘Hate thinking we buried him if he wasn’t dead, just hibernating.’ Ugonna Nwankpa added: ‘Now I’m stay[ing] up all night thinking if we buried [pet] Matthew alive.’ Jeanette Marshall said she created a grave for her hamster Harold and had gone back inside for the body when he ‘got up and ran across the kitchen’.
Mrs Goodman said: ‘I think I have caused a bit of a panic, but that wasn’t the intention. I can’t even bear to think about all the hamsters that may have been buried six inches under in a shoe box that were still alive.’ Hamsters are originally from arid areas and hibernate naturally in the winter when temperatures can drop below f reezing. However, the RSPCA said it was unusual for pets to go into a deep sleep if they are kept in a warm house.
To awaken an animal that appears to be hibernating, experts recommend gently stroking them or moving their cage to a warmer room.