Sunday With Spike

A few weeks ago I happened to be checking out Plaza Artist Materials in Rockville, Maryland when I found another hedgehog-related product. It’s a craft kit called made by eeBoo called Waste-Not and the object is to make a hedgehog using a disposable 20 oz. plastic bottle. It provides a fun yet serious message on the virtues of recycling.

As for my own real-life hedgehog Spike, I haven’t been able to take him outside in his outdoor playpen as much as I would’ve liked because earlier this month there were a few weeks of extreme heat and humidity and there were days when there was a poor air quality warning due to the high temperatures. Last Sunday I finally had a chance to take Spike outdoors for the first time in weeks because the intense heatwave broke and it was replaced by milder summer weather. I was able to take this cute photo of Spike in his playpen as he was sniffing around the travel case I used to bring him outdoors.

That photo almost became the last one I would ever take of Spike and I’m still shaken as I’m typing this. A few hours ago I was doing the usual weekly cleaning of Spike’s cage. I was later in getting started on Spike’s weekly cage cleaning than usual because I was doing other things outside the home (such as trying to teach myself soldering skills at the local STEM center in my town).

Spike’s cage was a messy wreck as usual so I had to go through with the weekly cage cleaning even if it was late afternoon turning into early evening. I did what I usually do when the weather is warm outside: I took Spike out of his cage and placed him in his outdoor playpen that’s located in the backyard. I usually supervise him for a few minutes until he settles down in the playpen. On this day he opted to walk out of the newly opened traveling case and hide in a plastic tunnel that I keep in the playpen. He turned into a ball of spikes and he just settled down.

So I went back indoors and proceeded with the cage cleaning while Spike was outdoors in the playpen. Once I finished with washing his cage furniture, washing his dishes, and replacing his soiled bedding, I put his furniture back in the cage and added fresh food and water. At that point it was time to go back to the outdoor playpen and pick up Spike for the trip back to his newly cleaned cage.

By that time it was night and the backyard was totally dark. I brought my little flashlight and I managed to navigate over to his playpen. I looked in his opened traveling case and saw that he wasn’t there. So I naturally assumed that he was still hiding in his tunnel. I usually find him hiding in his tunnel while curled up in a spikey ball so all I have to do is pick up the tunnel, pour the contents into the traveling case, then walk back indoors.

Except tonight I saw that the tunnel was empty as well. I picked up the traveling case because I’ve sometimes seen Spike hide underneath the case. Except he wasn’t there either.

At that point I began to panic. I had heard that hedgehogs are notorious escape artists but I thought I had the walls of the outdoor playpen secured on even ground. I know that Spike had briefly escaped from his outdoor playpen a couple of months ago but that was due to the fact that I had placed the playpen on uneven ground in the front yard and Spike managed to take advantage of a tiny gap towards the bottom of the fence. Fortunately I was directly supervising Spike that day so I was able to quickly trap him before he ran around the neighborhood.

After that prior escape attempt, I relocated the playpen to the backyard and I thought I had thoroughly tested the walls to make sure they were resting on solid ground. I had previously placed Spike in the playpen’s current location throughout the summer with no incident. So I was totally shocked when I didn’t see Spike in the outdoor playpen this evening.

At that point I began to panic and I started to move the flashlight around outside the playpen. I quickly found Spike sniffing slowly around the patio and he was totally engulfed in slowly sniffing his new surroundings. I was able to quickly scoop up Spike with the small pet scooper and put him back into the small pets traveling case. I quickly ran back indoors and placed him back in his cage.

The first thing Spike did when I returned him to his cage: Eating his food. Right now, as I’m typing this, he’s curled up in his plastic igloo inside of his cage.

I’m relieved that I found Spike quickly but I’m going to have to closely inspect the playpen for any gaps large enough for an African Pgymy Hedgehog to slip through. If necessary I plan to relocate the playpen again to solid ground. I’m also going to have to closely monitor Spike’s time in the playpen than I have been because I don’t want to have a repeat of tonight’s escape attempt. I was lucky that I was able to quickly find Spike when I did. The next time I may not be so lucky. The backyard faces the woods and had Spike opted to slip through the back fence instead of sniffing out the patio, I would probably never see him again because he is so small and he loves to hide so much that he would be very difficult to find.

I’m glad I was able to find Spike quickly because I’m still reeling emotionally from my recent divorce and I just don’t need any more drama right now.

Sunday With Spike

When I was at the Hon Fest last Saturday, I found yet another plush hedgehog that was on sale at the Scentsy vendor booth. I later found out that he’s part of the Scentsy Buddy line for children and he’s named Havi Hedgehog. I have to admit that he’s pretty cute.

Yesterday I checked out Community Forklift‘s birthday party where, as part of the festivities there was a community art project where anyone can paint this large wall-sized wooden board.

I had arrived to the party later in the afternoon when much of the board was already filled. I decided to pick a small space and I grabbed some blue paint. I basically painted a quick image of a blue hedgehog (who doesn’t look anything like the more famous blue hedgehog Sonic).

This board is going to be installed in one of the back offices in the future so my tiny hedgehog painting will be embellished for all time. For the record, my tiny hedgehog is located underneath what looks like a pink cherry blossom flower and to the right of this green dinosaur.

And it’s located on the right edge of the entire piece.

And then there’s my own pet hedgehog Spike. He’s still around and he’s been really lively since the warm weather has arrived. Lately there has been a few days where it’s warm, sunny, and low humidity. These days I put Spike in his outdoor playpen a few times a week because I think a change in location and some fresh air would do him good. Sadly Spike disagrees. Whenever I try to take him out of his cage, he turns into a ball of spikes and he hisses angrily so I have to use the pet scooper to pick him up and put him in the small pets travelling case. Once we make the short one-minute commute to his outdoor playpen in the backyard, he settles down and sniffs around outside before he hides in either the plastic tunnel or the small pets travelling case.

When it’s time to go back indoors he turns into a hissing ball of spikes and I have to repeat the aforementioned steps in order to return him to his indoor cage. I just can’t win with this hedgehog!

Several months ago I decided that I had to learn to live with the fact that my pet is simply not very friendly. He hates to be petted or held (he puts his spikes up whenever I atempt to be affectionate towards him) and he hisses at me most evenings when I change his food and water. I’m fortunate in that Spike has never bitten me. (He doesn’t need to when he has his spikes that he can raise and lower at whim.) He is cute on the outside but his personality is far from being friendly.

Dealing with Spike is one of the reasons why I haven’t fallen totally apart when I got word that my divorce is final and I found out through the grapevine (mainly mutual friends) that my ex-husband got engaged to my ex-friend-turned-mistress last August. (Yes, they were engaged while he was still legally married to me. Since it’s June and it’s traditionally the month where many couples marry, I wouldn’t be surprised if I hear about those two getting married soon.) At least I still have a home so Spike can continue to live with me until either a) the day he dies or b) something totally catastrophic happens to me and, as a result, I can no longer take care of him. I have the continued outreach of family and friends. I have even ran into an old friend at yesterday’s party at Community Forklift (which I mentioned a few paragraphs ago) after I finished painting the blue hedgehog and we chatted a bit while I told him about how my marriage suddenly fell apart. I’m slowly adjusting to life as a single pet owner. I can’t say that I liked it when my marriage came to a quick and sudden end (I was mostly happy until the night my husband announced that he was moving out three days after Christmas then ran out of the house before I could even ask him for an explanation) but it is what it is.

In a few hours I’ll have to deal with a hissing ball of spikes again as I do the weekly cage cleaning, which Spike totally hates.

Sunday With Spike

A couple of days ago I finally finished off the giant 8 pound bag of Pretty Pets hedgehog food that I bought by accident last November. It all started when I made a run to the pet store on the night of Election Day. (I felt that buying more food for Spike would be more productive than staying home glued to the TV set watching the elections returns. I didn’t even know who won the presidential election until I opened a copy of The Washington Post that arrived on the front porch the next morning.) The pet store had the last bag of Pretty Pets in stock so I bought it even though I thought it was odd that the prices had suddenly gotten more expensive. When I got home I found that I had purchased the 8 pound bag when I usually buy the smaller 3 pound bag. So now I understood why it was way more expensive than usual.

Unfortunately the pet store where I made the purchase had a no-return policy on pet food and I began to fear the possibility that the food would spoil before Spike had the chance to finish it all. (Especially since I usually give Spike three tablespoons of food a day and he rarely comes close to even eating that much.) So I began this experiment where I would empty some of the contents of the 8 pound bag into the recently empty 3 pound bag until it was full. Then I took a one-gallon zip lock food bag and emptied more of the food in that bag until it was full. Afterwards I took a chip clip and put it over the opening to the food that was left in the 8 pound bag. I took the zip lock bag and the 8 pound bag and put it in the freezer.

For the next couple of months I fed Spike from the 3 pound bag until I ran out. Then I took the zip lock bag full of hedgehog food from the freezer and defrosted it. I fed Spike from that bag until I ran out. Finally I took the rest of what’s still in the 8 pound bag from the freezer and fed Spike food from that bag until I finally got rid of it all.

When I first fed Spike the defrosted food, I kept a close eye on him for any signs of malnutrition since Spike was unable to talk in English on how he likes the taste of the food. He still ate as much food as he usually does and he showed no signs of starving to death.

Thanks to that experiment, I now know that one can freeze hedgehog food with no problem at all. It took over 7 months to get rid of the food. If I were to calculate the cost of that bag with the number of months it took to empty the bag, I would conclude that, in the long run, I spent less on that bag than I usually would on the 3 pound bag. Despite the savings, I opted for the smaller 3 pound bag mainly because the 8 pound bag took up so much space in my freezer. Here is a photo showing how much space hedgehog food can take up in the freezer door.

If I was a hedgehog breeder or someone who owned two or more hedgehogs, it would be more cost effective to buy the 8 pound bag. Since I only have one hedgehog with no intention of getting another one while Spike is still alive, I think that a 3 pound bag is good enough for Spike. At least I’ll have more space in my freezer.

Last week I did a lot of driving in order to buy some more bags of Ultra Bites Fruit and Veggie Treats for Hedgehogs. Each night I usually give Spike two tablespoons of Pretty Pets and one tablespoon of Ultra Bites. I was running low on both Pretty Pets and Ultra Bites so I drove to the nearest pet store that stocks such food, Today’s Pet. I found a 3 pound bag of Pretty Pets (which I have just written about earlier in this entry) but I saw that the store was out of Ultra Bites. I asked a store employee and he said that they are currently out of stock.

So I ended up driving further to the pet store where I originally got Spike 16 months earlier, Sea Breeze Pet Center. I saw that the store was also out of Ultra Bites. The store owner was there and she told me that the manufacturer had decided to stop manufacturing Ultra Bites. She added that it was too bad about the manufacturer’s decision because she said that the store did a brisk business in selling Ultra Bites. Then she looked around and said that this product that’s made for chinchillas has similar ingredients to Ultra Bites so perhaps I might take a shot at feeding this to Spike instead.

I decided to take the risk and I bought a few packets of this stuff. (The package is in the same small sized container as Ultra Bites so I bought that one in bulk like I did with the Ultra Bites.) So far Spike seems to be okay with the substitute so I’ll just continue with feeding him that product.

A few days ago I was at PetSmart again because I needed to buy some more cage cleaning supplies for Spike’s weekly cage cleaning when I found yet another company who has come out with yet another hedgehog plush toy for dogs. This one was released under the Toy Shoppe Playables Dog Toy label.

This morning I decided to blow off going to church and stay home when I saw Spike emerging from his plastic igloo. It’s unusual for him to wake up at that time because, like all hedgehogs, he’s usually nocturnal and he rarely wakes up on his own before 6 p.m. He was up eating his food then he headed for his tunnel where he hung around there. I tried to take a picture of Spike being awake in the morning but he hissed at me when I approached his cage. He only stuck his butt out the tunnel opening and refused to show his face.

He eventually grew tired enough to return to the plastic igloo he uses as his bedroom and fell back to sleep.

Later that day I had to disturb Spike because I needed to do his weekly cage cleaning, which he totally hates. Since today it was a nice and sunny day with low humidity, I thought it would be a good idea for me to put Spike in his small pets traveling case and move him to his outdoor playpen so he could hang there while I cleaned his cage. Usually I tend to find Spike in his plastic igloo where he becomes a hissing ball of spikes when I lift the igloo up and I have to take out the small pet scooper to remove him because that’s the only way I can pick up a hissing ball of spikes.

Today I lifted the igloo up and he wasn’t there. Spike then poked his face out of the tunnel where he was hiding. So I picked up the tunnel and attempted to pour Spike into the small pets traveling case but he resisted that effort. So I had no other choice but to take the entire tunnel, take it outside, and place the longer tunnel in the outdoor playpen right next to the shorter tunnel that’s usually located in the playpen.

I attempted to tip the longer tunnel in order to encourage Spike to leave it so I can take it back inside and clean it along with his other cage furniture. But he refused to budge. So I decided to go back inside and clean his igloo, exercise wheel, plastic Easter Egg (where I hide his mealworms on the days he gets them), food dish, and water dish. When I finished cleaning them, I went back outside and found that Spike was still inside the longer tunnel. So I ended up going back inside and get rid of his soiled litter followed by cleaning the bottom of his cage. I waited a half an hour for everything to dry then put in clean litter and put back in his clean furniture and his clean dishes filled with fresh food and water. I went back outside and found that Spike was still in his longer tunnel.

So I once again picked up the tunnel and brought it back inside his cage. It was only after the tunnel was placed back in the cage and Spike smelled the fresh food that he finally left that tunnel and started feeding. I took advantage of the opportunity and removed the tunnel so I could clean that one as well. I came close to just skipping cleaning the tunnel this week but I’m glad I didn’t because Spike had left some droppings inside that tunnel and I needed to remove them for hygienic reasons.

For such a small pet Spike has a lot of attitude. One day I’ll look back this incident and laugh.

Sunday With Spike

I know it’s been a while since I wrote anything remotely resembling hedgehogs. But I still continue to see hedgehogs in my real life, such as what I saw at Awesome Con DC, including one man cosplaying as Sonic the Hedgehog and a handmade quilt featuring the blue hedgehog.

A few weeks ago I went to PetSmart in order to purchase some more litter for Spike’s cage when I saw this latest hedgehog-shaped toy. It’s a Spot Butterball toy for dogs.

Spike has been in a more chipper mood lately ever since spring arrived. The biggest change has been his use of the exercise wheel. When I first got Spike, he would use his exercise wheel every night and he even displayed this annoying habit of having his exercise wheel double as a toilet. (Basically he would pause in his exercise wheel, do his business, then continue moving on that wheel.) It made cleaning his exercise wheel a total hassle.

But then last September Spike abruptly stopped using the exercise wheel. I had no idea why he stopped. I checked the wheel and it was still functioning okay. He just decided he didn’t want to use it anymore. But in November he decided to use the exercise wheel (while resuming his habit of having the wheel double as a toilet) for about a couple of weeks then he quit using it again and he didn’t touch it at all.

About two weeks ago Spike decided to go back on the exercise wheel and he’s been using it on a nightly basis ever since. Of course he also has resumed using it as a toilet. (Ugh!)

A few hours ago I decided to take Spike outside to his outdoor playpen since it was a relatively warm and sunny day. (I also figured that I could clean his cage while he’s in the playpen.) I saw that the mints in my herb garden were getting taller so I broke off a sprig and put that in the playpen to see how Spike would react to it.

He noticed that the mint was very fragrant so he sniffed it.

Then he used that mint sprig to do that common hedgehog ritual of "anting" or "self-annointing". There’s a theory that hedgehogs engage in this activity in order to disguise their odors and mask themselves from potential predators. The only problem is that Spike was using mint to ant himself with and mint is a very edible herb for a variety of animals. (That reminds me of the time years ago when I was growing basil and I saw a rabbit in the yard. Soon afterwards, I saw that the basil had been gnawed off at the stalk until a stub remained. Ironically new stalks grew out of that stub and the basil was far bushier than before its encounter with the rabbit.) At least he used mint to ant himself and not some foul smelling substance.

After a few minutes of anting, Spike started to hang around the edge of his outdoor playpen where he was sticking his nose through the bars.

Sunday With Spike

During a trip to the PetSmart that’s located near my home, I saw a bunch of Christmas toys that one can purchase for dogs and cats. I even found a couple of these toys shaped like hedgehogs. Here’s a catnip-filled Santa hat-wearing hedgehog for cats.

And here’s a larger Christmas hedgehog toy for dogs.

As for my real hedgehog Spike, I recently tried something new on him. I usually do his weekly cage cleaning on Sundays. Spike hates having his cage cleaned so much that he will turn himself into a ball of spikes while shaking his body and hissing at me. (That’s his idea of non-violent protest. LOL!) I usually have to use the small pets scooper to scoop him out of the cage (believe me, holding a ball of spikes in your hands is a difficult and painful experience) and put him in a temporary place while I clean my cage.

At first I would put him in a small pets traveler case. Initially he would stay in his spikey ball mode and go to sleep. However, after doing this a few months, I noticed that he began to scratch and claw at the sides of the case in a desperate attempt to tear a hole and escape. While he didn’t succeed in his efforts to create a hole, I realized that he didn’t like being in that case at all.

By that point the weather was warm outside and I had purchased the small pets playpen as an outdoor enclosure for Spike. After a few weeks of constantly testing the bars in a desperate attempt to escape, I added one of his plastic tunnels and I found that he would simply go inside the tunnel and rest there while he was in the playpen. So for the next few months, on cage cleaning days I would put Spike in the small pets traveler case, go into the backyard, release him in the outdoor playpen, and watch him settle into his tunnel. I would then go back indoors and clean his cage while he was outdoors then fetch Spike once I finished.

It was a good solution but I knew that I couldn’t continue to use the outdoor playpen once the cold weather comes so I began to look at other temporary enclosures for Spike that I could use indoors during the winter. It had to be larger in area than the small pets traveler case but not so large that it would take up a huge amount of space in my living room. I finally found the perfect solution during a trip to Five Below. I found a laundry/storage tub for only $4. I bought it, took it home, and used it the next time Cage Cleaning Sunday came around. Spike really took to that tub. It has more walking room than the small pets traveler case and Spike seemed more relaxed in that tub.

Nowadays, whenever I need to clean out Spike’s cage, I take the tub and line the bottom with two sections of newspaper. I use the newspaper to keep the tub as clean as possible since pet hedgehogs can’t be housebroken like dogs. I also put one freeze-dried mealworm in the tub for Spike to snack on in order to make him feel better about being temporarily removed from his cage.

I put Spike in the tub. He’ll initially sniff the newspaper until he finds the mealworm and eats it. Then he’ll continue to sniff the newspaper for a little while.

But then he manages to figure out that the newspapers are two separate sections so he manages to bury himself between the sections so he’ll become completely hidden from view.

While he’s hidden in the tub, I clean his cage completely. Once I finish, I return to the tub and look for Spike between the newspapers. I can usually find him by lifting the top newspaper. (As you can see, Spike used the bottom newspaper to relieve himself.) I return him to his cage then I throw away the newspapers I used in the tub.

When Spike isn’t in the tub, I use it to store his food and cage cleaning supplies.

Sunday With Spike

Spike is an African Pygmy Hedgehog. As you can tell from the name of his species, his kind is indigenous to Africa, a continent known for hot weather. With the recent heatwave in the Washington, DC area (where temperatures rose as high as 105 degrees Farenheit), I thought Spike would be in his own element and be more active in the hot weather.

Well, I thought wrong. On those days with high heat and high humidity, he sleeps even more than usual. He even sleeps more at night even though he’s supposed to be nocturnal. Friday night I left Spike sleeping in his cage at home as I went to a friend’s birthday party even though it was extremely hot and humid outside and it was sweltering inside her home at times. (She has air conditioning and ceiling fans but with the large number of people and the extreme temperature outside, it was still pretty warm.) When I began to hear and see thunder and lightning outside, I decided to leave the party. The intense Friday night storm started while I was in my car and it was a harrowing drive as I saw leaves and branches flying and I even saw a few traffic lights and street lights go black.

When I got home, Spike emerged in a very lively mood. He began to do his usual cardio on his exercise wheel while the storm continued to rage outside. It’s almost like the suddenly dropping barometric pressure signaled to him that it’s okay to once again carry on with his life. I was lucky that I didn’t lose electrical power in this storm, unlike so many other people.

But the next day, I suddenly lost power around 6 p.m. Why? I don’t know. There were no storms but it was still very hot outside. I decided to go to the movies instead of waiting and hoping that PEPCO would get around to my block. I saw the new Disney/Pixar film Brave. It’s a really cool movie and I highly recommend it.

By the time I got back home, I got the power back. My cable and Internet was still out but that were relatively minor compared to having no power with the weather having high heat and high humidity outside. Spike slept through the whole thing. In fact he didn’t wake up until after 10 p.m. when the temperatures outside dipped back into the upper 80’s. The first thing he did was to alternate between eating, drinking, and using his exercise wheel.

In any case here’s a photo of Spike on the prowl in his outdoor playpen.

Sunday With Spike

For the past six weeks I haven’t been home much in the evenings, when Spike is usually awake. (Hedgehogs are nocturnal and Spike is no different. He rarely wakes up on his own before 6 p.m.) Between attending Artomatic-related events and going to support group meetings, my frequent absence was the first major test of our owner/pet relationship since I brought him home from the pet store on January 29. I’ve read on various hedgehog websites that most hedgehogs will do fine without having anyone pay attention to them as long as someone provides new food and water every day and do a thorough cage cleaning once a week.

So I made every effort to clean out Spike’s cage every Sunday and to make sure he gets fresh food and water before I head out for the evening. If I happened to be out most of the day when I planned to attend some evening event, I had to stop home at least once so I could change Spike’s food and water before heading back out.

With Artomatic being over as of last night, I was able to see the results of being away from Spike so much. He seemed to take everything in stride. His personality hasn’t changed much and he still seems pretty laid back. I now know first-hand that hedgehogs are just as independent-minded as cats and don’t mind not being personally paid attention to.

If Spike had been a dog instead of a hedgehog, I would be writing an entirely different entry. (I still have memories of when my parents had a half-Labrador Retriever/half-Chesapeake Bay Retriver named Napoleon and he would be angry whenever my family went away on vacation to a place that didn’t allow pets and my parents had to put him in a kennel during the entire length of the trip. He would literally turn his back on my parents whenever they retrieved him from the kennel and it would take him at least a day or two before he forgave my parents for doing what he thought was a major sin.) A dog would be either sad and depressed over me being gone so much or would do something destructive like chew on furniture or poop on the carpet in the house.

So I am relieved that Spike is independent enough that I could go out two or more nights a week and he’ll be fine emotionally.

Here’s Spike looking beyond the bars of his outdoor playpen. Even though he has ample space in his playpen that’s even larger than his own cage, Spike still constantly looks beyond the bars like he’s dreaming of freedom.

Sunday With Spike

Here’s Spike exploring the boundaries of his outdoor playpen.

Sunday With Spike

Spike has this tendency to test the bars of his outdoor playpen to see if he can slip through them. Even though he hasn’t succeeded yet, he’s still not deterred from trying. Sometimes he even hangs on the bars looking wistfully at not being able to escape on his own.

Sunday With Spike

Here’s a photo of Spike the Hedgehog in his outdoor playpen. It had been raining a lot at the time this photo was taken and it showed some of the weeds in the playpen being taller than Spike.