Saturday, March 24, 2007

Cooper gets a bath, I get a hamster named Dorothy.


Cooper is six years old and had the first proper grooming and bath of his entire life! Feet trimmed, ear hair coiffed, the whole bit. Professionally done and he was cranky about it but he does look marvellous. I mainly took him in because he was getting dreadlocks on the insides of his thighs and I don't have the right grooming tools to get those out kinda painlessly.

Elvis and his Rottweiler Daphne cuddling. Again. Gratuitous awww photo.



This is Dorothy, and that is Elvis contemplating Dorothy.
No, I didn't want a hamster. I think "pocket pets" are kind of silly and think hamsters ought to stay in China and Syria and whatever deserts they're supposed to inhabit.
But I have one, she was free and it was just one of those things. Some people get drunk, go online to zappos.com and 3 am and buy hundreds of dollars worth of shoes. I get free hamsters.
She bites. Quite hard, actually.
Most varieties of hamsters kill each other if kept together in cages, they are bloodthirsty little loners.
They're also omnivores and like meat.
So far the only vegetable type thing she likes is carrot, in an indifferent sort of way.
Cat kibble and bits of cooked salmon she rips out of my fingers and crams in her face. If I wave a bit of animal protein at her cage, she climbs the bars and sticks her tiny little paws through and gets really excited.
When she is not frolicking in the bathtub, trying to rip my fingertips off or busily making nests out of toilet paper, she lives in one of the bathroom cabinets up high so Elvis can't get to her.

14 Comments:

Blogger daydreamer said...

Aww he looks so handsome.. Cute hamster.
I had one bite me once & that broke me from ever wanting one. Cute Kitty by the way..

11:02 PM  
Blogger Semavi Lady said...

Uhhuhn... the hamster followed you home, right. ;) I used to have problems like that, esp with aquarium fish that followed me home.

Hey, Cooper looks good. I have a rough coat (my first rough coated Anatolian) and will be learning about that sort of coat care as she matures.

Something I'm looking into now for future use... A member of my LGD (livestock guardian dog) forum posted this all-in-one tool called a Mars Coat King. See what it can do. He apparently likes quite a bit, as he's not a 'groomer' type but he's got more than half a dozen working Great Pyrenees and Kuvaszok (let's talk about really hairy dogs!) on his horse training facility where he also raises sheep. The dogs are strictly pasture/barn working dogs that keep the predators away.

He truly doesn't fuss with coats, and says this tool is as easy as just occasionally wisking it through the coat a few swipes.

1:51 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Cooper looks most pampered and handsome. I'm calling on the groomer more and more even for my short haired dogs. She can turn them out better than I can.

I'm not sure ahout the hamster though. It sounds like the pocket pet from hell.

10:19 PM  
Blogger carina said...

Daydreamer, thanks...! Hamsters are bloodthirsty little buggers. I sorta respect that though, they're wild animals. :)

Janice you have fish following you home...you are too funny!
I recently bought a furminator which works beautifully... that Mars Coat King looks interesting, I've never seen a grooming tool like that! Not that I'm an expert on grooming tools.
I would LOVE to see a photo of your fluffy! Cooper donated DNA to MSU for a study on fluffy genes.
http://tinyurl.com/2eygfk

Jan - I rather respect Dorothy's viciousness in light of the fact she weighs about two ounces! She's fearless. :)

5:06 AM  
Blogger Tabor said...

Quite a zoo you have going on there.

4:57 PM  
Blogger Lauren said...

Cooper is such a handsome guy!! He looks great!

I think Elvis might just have the right idea about the hampster. . . Lunch!! I can't stand rodents in any form. . .

Hope all is well. . ..

9:10 PM  
Blogger Semavi Lady said...

Carina, thanks for the link to the fluffy test. Wow, I'd like to test both parents and my fluffy girl (pic ) but ouch, a bit pricey for the curiosity. Like Cooper, both parents have generations of the standard coat behind them but in my case, I had half a litter with rough. The usual punnett square would be a 1/4 litter of roughs if it were recessive on each parent. It may have just been a lucky throw, lol. And a chocolate to boot. But that's less surprising since Boone, the dad, had a liver mother.

I think rough coat involves more than a simple recessive, but includes information on where rough coat will express and to what degree. Here are Coco with her big sister, Ruya in the middle. Zor the mom is on the left.

Oh, I'm talking to myself no doubt!

My standard shedding tool for all my Anatolians is a shedding rake.

1:33 AM  
Blogger Semavi Lady said...

Oops, mis-typed the link for Coco with sister Ruya, and her mom (plus sibs).

They are playing in a sort of sand boxy area that James made for them next to the horse corral.

1:38 AM  
Blogger yellowdoggranny said...

cooper looks lovely....and my money is on elvis..the hamster is histroy..

11:26 PM  
Blogger Matt said...

Great pictures. Especially the one of the hamster.

8:41 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Nothing says "good times" like being about fifteen years old, and waking up to find that one of your dwarf hairy-footed hamsters ate its cagemate, and then removed the dead cagemate's eyes. Ah, memories...

1:35 PM  
Blogger Karen said...

Cooper is very handsome, indeed!

9:19 PM  
Blogger Gus said...

Elvis and cooper look relaxed. Love the milk cow dog bed they are laying on. Where did you get it?

4:12 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I love the Elvis & Daphne picture. I think we're getting closer and closer to a time when Dante might be able to nap with one of the cats.

I had a hamster when I was a kid. Damn thing had ginormous teeth, which she sunk into my fingers whenever possible. Now, if I want blood drawn, I visit with the birds or the kittens.

9:14 AM  

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