Quote Originally Posted by snarkfeathers
your Foxy was beautiful! what a gorgeous colour!

What is the difference between hampsters and other rodents? I don't think we have hamsters in NZ.
Hamsters are sort of like little mice, but they have very short tails and have a much more rounded figure than other rodents. It's hard to describe how different they are, but if you saw a mouse and a hamster next to each other then you'd see a very obvious difference

Thanks, Foxy was a very pretty girl, you can't really tell from those pics, but she was a medium-haired hamster, and with smoke pearl in her, was luxoriously soft. We lost her to an internal tumour in January and she was just a little over a year old, I still miss her terribly

Quote Originally Posted by snarkfeathers
We have a hard time with friends and relatives that hate rats and don't understand why we want to keep them or what wonderful pets they can be.
People hear "rat" and think of big scruffy diseased sewer rats. I think we need to start a campaign...change the name or something. Prunes are dried plums, rats can be....i dunno...mini-dogs? They're affectionate and smart and can learn tricks like dogs. Or maybe...Hand-dogs. Any ideas?
YES!!! That annoys me so much! Rats are intelligent, playful, cuddly, cute, clean.... i could go on forever, and yet they've been burdened with this stereotype of a mangy smelly animal. I think people really need correcting on this, and Tia has helped me do this. So far, i think we've converted about 10-15 people who would never have even looked at a rat to the joys of holding one and letting her climb all over you! She knows about 20-ish commands, so that proves rats are intelligent, and she's got the funniest little personality! She's a doll Yes, you're right, rats are a little like mini dogs !