I’m not sure I like the word “pet”. I know that’s what she is. She was bred and she was bought and she was given the name, Chutney. Sounds pretty pet-like, yes? But…
I first heard about her via a text from My Friend The Doctor: “Would you like a free hedgehog at all?” I knew her sister had a hedgehog and to be honest I’d always thought it was a bit weird. All I could think of was the staple of British wildlife being kept indoors as a plaything. Now I’ve done a lot more research…I still think it’s a bit weird, but in a different way. For a start they aren’t like the ones we’d see in our gardens. They are from a different continent and they’re not wild-caught. They come from breeders just like a lot of puppies and kittens, corn snakes and chinchillas (remember them?). In that respect they are not weird but I still view them a bit like buying brand new clothes. Largely unnecessary. However, I also recognise that in the right circumstances they can do wonders for the well-being. That said, I believe that to bring an animal into this world to intentionally live in captivity you’ve got to be certain you can give it a decent life. It’s not about you. That’s why I find the whole concept of pets a bit weird.
So why do I now find myself caring for a hedgehog? Well, it turns out this hedgehog, Chutney, wasn’t getting on too well in her current home and really needed to find a more suitable one. Being a bit of a sucker for a rescue mission (I am my mother’s daughter) I started to get interested. I’d been thinking about opening our home to a creature for a while and this seemed like a gentle, well-timed shove. I spent a weekend thinking and researching and then my decision was made.
Collecting her was an entirely different experience from the one I’d been anticipating. Her existing home was in London and I imagined her family to be posh, with not much of a clue about animal welfare beyond their own interests. Armed with feelings of self-righteousness I knocked on the door. Inside I found a really lovely family, including a 12 year old girl whose heart I was about to break. My halo shattered.
In fairness, it was the right thing to do. Chutney just wasn’t the right pet for her. Hogs take work and commitment. They are prickly, they poo a lot (more on this later) and they are hardly ever up when you are. I don’t think I could have coped with this at 12. Kudos to her for sticking it out for a year and for admitting it was time for Chutney to move on.
After some teary goodbyes we made the journey “home”. She sat in a little box on my lap while my BeechBumb drove.
Day zero was largely uneventful, comprising mainly of sleep punctuated by episodes of grumpiness. This was undoubtedly due to being rudely awoken in the middle of the night to take part in a stressful relocation. I felt so bad. I had suggested a Saturday morning because it suited me. So much for “it’s not about you”. I put her travel box on its side in the cage so that she could get out and explore at her leisure. She didn’t. She sat in there and hissed at me and when she’d had enough of that she went to sleep. She hissed again whenever I poked her (to check she was still alive – I’m sure you’ve been there) but other than that she knocked out the Z’s. I expected her to wake up when it got dark but by 9 something she was still sleeping and I was tired. I didn’t think this was the best time to bond, with both of us prone to crankiness, so I left her to it. I did wake up in the night and popped in to see her. She was in her wheel but she jumped at my approach so I left her alone again.
I woke up at 5.30am this morning. I would have gone back to sleep but with a new hog next door I was never going to drift off again. I tip-toed in to “her” room and to my consternation she was asleep again. I was beginning to worry she was depressed. I considered that if I had nothing to do I would probably sleep a lot. With this in mind and the knowledge that we would have to have a proper introduction at some point, I woke her up. Cue reason number 2 for Chutney to hate me. After a few minutes of hissing and huffing and sticking her spines up in all sorts of directions she calmed down and began to potter around the cage (which, by the way is huge – about the surface area of a single bed – further proof that she was well loved). I transferred her, fleecy sleeping bag and all, into a plastic box while I did a little housekeeping. This is the pooey bit. They poo. A lot. Not those nice little, dry poos that hamsters do. These are big squishy ones in comparison. The best bit? They poo as they run. And where do they run? Their wheel. Consequently both the wheel and the hog’s feet get covered. Yay! So, I cleaned the wheel and Chutney pottered in the plastic box. I put an egg box, some brown packing paper and some newspaper balls in the box with her which she seemed to enjoy, though she also seemed to get “huffy” from time to time for no apparent reason. “Huffy” is a word I have learnt from other hedgehog keepers on the Internet. I haven’t seen a definition of it but it seems to fit what I see her do.
Further evidence of how she doesn’t like me is when I picked her up. She bit me. I thought the gloves made of something akin to dragon hide were a bit extreme but thanks to them I felt nothing. She curled into a ball and I put her down. It’s difficult to tell which way up a hedgehog is when they are in a ball. As she uncurled we both realised she was standing on her head. Oops.
The best bit of the morning was when I put the plastic box, with her inside, on its side in the bath with a tiny bit of water at the plug end. After much to-ing and fro-ing she ventured out of the box and had a paddle. Great for cleaning her feet.
Not so great for my BeechBumb who balks at the idea of her smearing hedgehog poo all over the bottom of the bath.
We had a little photo shoot during our early morning adventure. Mostly she poses like this:
Guess I’d better set the alarm.