# Unexpected New Friend...



## Kamikazeke (Mar 14, 2013)

About two weeks ago my older sister went out and bought herself a pet hodgehog from a pet store (Ugh!) I tried to warn her not to get one because my sister is the type of person who preferrs to stay out all night and party so she's not home terribly often. I told her that she wasn't going to have enough time to spend with her hedgie and it was going to become unfriendly. I knew that if her hedgie wasn't friendly and she couldn't play with it she would lose interest in it and pass it off to me (like she did with her 3 cats the week before she went out and bought her hedgie) As I predicted she spends no time with the poor things and she is completely unsocial. I could tell that she had done absolutely no research before purchasing her new friend. I tried my best to give her as much information as I could, including telling her over and over again that she should spend at least half an hour every night bonding with her hedgie.

Today she arrived at my house with her hedgehog in a carrier. I thought she was just bringing her over to show me, but she told me that she was going to "leave her here for the weekend." She didn't bring a cage, water bottle, or anything. Luckily I had a spare materials... My sister claims she wants to leave her hedgie here for "niceness bootcamp" Two things wrong with this to begin with.... 1) Im a new hedgie mommy myself. I spend a lot of time cuddling and playing with my little Sega every single night. I don't know how to "cure" Grumpy Hedgie Syndrome. 2) There is only so much I can do over a single weekend. And even if I do somehow manage to get her hedgie comfortable around me, odds are she won't be handled enough and will simply revert back to her old ways.

I've also noticed that having another hedgie in the room has made Sega very huffy. She is normally very sweet and won't quill up when I go to pick her up. Tonight it took me almost half an hour to get Sega to lay her quills down and even then every time my sisters hedgie would make a sound she would huff and quill up. I've since moved my sisters hedgehog to my bathroom and it seems like Sega is a little more relaxed.

I feel so conflicted about all this. I would feel guilty giving the hedgehog back to my sister because I know she isn't getting the care and attention she needs. At the same time I would love to adopt the poor thing, but at the current time I only have the resources necessary to keep one hedgie. I also wouldn't want to risk Segas health and personality by stressing her out with another hedgie being in the room. I would love to find a more suitable owner for my sisters hedgie, but unfortunately she is not mine to give away. Any ideas? :/


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## sklock65 (Jan 9, 2013)

There are lots of members here that are breeders or just owners of more than one hedgie so hopefully you will get more solid feedback. But if it were me (and your sister does decide to pass the hedgie on to you) I would think you could just keep them in separate rooms to avoid stressing out Sega. Putting them in the same cage to live is not a great idea anyway. Besides possible vet visits it doesn't seem like there would be many other expenses for having two hedgies rather than one. After initial cage/wheel/etc setup you already have food and other supplies on hand. I would think you could alternate nights or times bonding if need be. Perhaps you can look after (and socialize) the hedgie until you can find another safe option, somewhere to live. You seem knowledgable about hedgies and what they need so I wish you luck figuring this all out!


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## abbys (Oct 13, 2012)

Wow, not cool of your sister. Since you say she has a habit of doing stuff like this, maybe you could just convince her to let you have the hedgie now instead of waiting a few more weeks for her to get tired of it. Then you can find a good home for her. Poor girl. I hate to think of how she'll be treated in the meantime.  If you do end up having to keep her for awhile, do you need any supplies? I have an extra cage you can have if you're anywhere near Seattle. Thank goodness the hedgie has a concerned, caring aunt like you  I hope everything works out for the best. Keep us posted.


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## Twiggy22 (Jan 22, 2013)

I know your pain, I have a sister exactly like yours. two years ago my sister went out and adopted a kitten. Which I knew was going to be a disaster because she can't even be responsible for a stuffed animal let alone a live animal. After the novelty wore off she cared about her less and less, so bad that she would always "forget" to buy her food and the poor girl would go DAYS without it. Thankfully I also have my own cat and if it wern't for me she would have starved, but yet my sister could go out every night to the bars and drink away.
Now I buy her food, take care of vet bills and keep the litter box clean. She still claims to be her "mother", which is ridiculous, you can't let your baby starve, or not take care of her at all. Basically to her she is for show and nothing more. But she has become my cat. Infact she is so bad that last week I asked her to feed the cats for me since I was sick, she told me no because she didn't want to go to the bar smelling like cat food!! 
Sorry I really needed to get that out.... it frustrates me soo much.








Here she is, Belle my calico

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## Dee (Jan 9, 2010)

Poor baby  
Just on the stress thing, when Cindaquil came home Pindsvin HATED IT. He was so unhappy for about two weeks, and they weren't actually ever in contact. It was just her smell being in the house made him huffy. But after that he calmed down and has pretty much gone back to being his usual snuggly self!


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## momIImany (Oct 14, 2012)

I think there is a "sister" like that in most families. Mine did the same thing. She really isn't an animal person and should know this by now. I've raised all her animals that she purchased as a kid. When she married, they got a dog for the kids. Now that the kids are grown, they are animal free - thank God. 

I remember giving her parakeets a bath and one flew out the open window when the bird bath fell off the door. I felt so bad that I went out and bought another one - the same color - and she didn't even know it was a different bird and smaller too!!


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## Twiggy22 (Jan 22, 2013)

Wow MomIImany :-o... did you ever tell her about it? 
I guess the only thing that we can do is just be there for the animals. My mom kept telling me for a while to not feed Belle or clean out her litter box, but how could I not? I wasn't just going to stand back and do nothing. She would say that it wasn't my responsibility. 

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## momIImany (Oct 14, 2012)

Twiggy22:
Yes, about 10-15 years later. Now we can all laugh about it. She was so oblivious. (Some things never change - even after 40 years!) :lol:


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## hedgielover (Oct 30, 2008)

It's a brother in my case. And parents. I was the one responsible for pet care growing up. It was like that as long as I can remember. I helped with feeding until I was old enough to remember on my own and as soon as I was old enough to understand I was standing in the vet office beside my mom listening to instructions and I took responsibility for medicines. I walked the dog and played with her and taught her tricks. Now that I'm not living at home a lot of care doesn't get done. Like nail trims and brushing for the cats and my brother got a dog that he barely has time to walk. It's frustrating and I don't much besides tell them better ways to care for their animals but really I'm not there or even in the same city so I can't really help them out. My sister is not a pet person and at least she's smart enough to know that and not get any.


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## 1Rayne (Mar 3, 2013)

this thread saddens me  

I was raised in a household where pets are for life! 
they are family members to the very end, you get them you keep them and give them the very best of care!


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## kvmommy (Feb 2, 2013)

My family was a little different...if we had pets they were taken care of but I had to fight tooth and nail to get a pet...but they never stuck around long. My mom doesn't like animals unless they are babies...eventually my mom got rid of them. When I enlisted in the army my parents agreed to keep my husky til I was done with basic....two weeks later they gave her away. I spent years trying to track her down. The woman they gave her to seemed realky nice and promised I could see my dog when I got back. She turned out to be a craigslist dog flipper. Took me a long time to forgive my parents


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## hedgielover (Oct 30, 2008)

That's terrible Kvmommy. I don't know if I could forgive my parents for doing that.


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## Twiggy22 (Jan 22, 2013)

That is horrible! But what is a craigslist dog flipper?

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## alexvdl (Dec 19, 2012)

Someone who convinces people to give them their animals for free or cheap, and then sells them on Craigslist for profit.


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## Twiggy22 (Jan 22, 2013)

Omg! That is horrible! I tell ya some people in this world should not live in society.

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## Kamikazeke (Mar 14, 2013)

Thanks so much everyone for the advice and support. It bumms me out to know there are so many of us going through this exact same thing :/

As for my sisters hedgehog I do have an update. I went out and got her another cage. I held her every night for a few hours, but she's still pretty huffy. I talked with my father about what I should do. He told be that she was not mine and ultimately I have to wait until my sister surrenders ownership of her hedgehog before I can decide to adopt her out. My sister picked her up earlier today. I warned her that her hedgehog was going to take a very long time to become socialized. I was completely disgusted by her response. She told me that she was going to breed her hedgie then keep one of the babies and sell the mother. I told her that she had no business breeding hedgehogs because she has absolutely no training or experience in the matter. (She thinks that just because she was a vet tech at Pets Mart that she can do anything she wants with animals) Plus I can imagine that she would do absolutely no research on how breeding works and all the dangers and downsides since she didn't even bother researching how to care for one in the first place. I also warned her that backyard breeding is severely frowned upon in the hedgehog community, especially considering her hedgehog is a store bought pet and has no trace of her lineage and she would be breeding for all the wrong reasons. In addition I told her that personality is hereditary and it is very likely that if she breeds an unsocial hedgie then odds are the offspring will be unsocial as well. Finally she told me that she would probably just sell hers and buy another one. *shakes head* It's so sad... I've told her so many times that even if her hedgie is nice to begin with it will inevitably become antisocial if she does not spend time with it every day! I gave her the option to give her little girl to me and I will find her a new home. So I guess we will see what happens...

Thanks again everyone for the support! I really appreciate it so much! And thank you for sharing your stories with me. :]


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## abbys (Oct 13, 2012)

I know she's your sister, but I have to say that this disgusts me. It's people like her who treat pets with such neglect and disregard that they wind up like sweetergrrrl's poor rescue, Namine.

I sincerely hope that each one of these irresponsible, neglectful people gets hit repeatedly by the Karma truck. This makes me sick.


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## swahf24 (Jan 23, 2013)

When I brought Jenna home, Bebop was not happy at all! But after a couple weeks he was back to his same old cute little antisocial self and behaves the same way he did before Jenna. They do seem to adjust and the couple nights I had my most recent foster in my apartment neither Bebop or Jenna had any reactions.  I hope your sister does the right thing and surrenders her poor hedgie to you, I get soooo upset over people that treat their animals like this. There should be a way to keep people like that from being able to have animals.


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