As we purchased Keith when he was 9 weeks old, we’ve realised somewhere around this date marks the little git’s 1st birthday! It’s been a long and winding 12 months, full of increasingly bizarre sleep pattern changes, an obsession with food, some pretty nifty acrobatics, and unintentionally comical activities. Yes, being a hamster must be pretty damn good fun.

Keith himself seems uninterested in his milestone. We have repeatedly informed him it is his 1st birthday, but it doesn’t seem to sink in. He stands up with his nose in the air sniffing away, shuffles back a bit, forgets he’s on a little perch, and collapses off it onto the floor. In a flash he’s back up and expectant of more food. Now we’d like to think we share a profound understanding of each other and connect intellectually, but the truth is more food based. Purely food based, in fact. Keith views us as The Food Machine. We were able to befriend him with food (hamsters are extremely timid when you first buy them – it takes around a week to get them un-timid), and since then have introduced him to pumpkin seeds (organic), spinach, kale, raisins, and much more. The highlight is seeing him seize a spinach leaf in his paws, and without pause shoving it furiously into his mouth. Yes, why deliberate over food and enjoy it when you can do that?

All hail Keith, then, and hamsters in general. Awesome little beasts they most certainly are! What we’ve learned from him is to eat food sensibly, don’t fall over stuff like an idiot, and maintain a regular sleep pattern. What he’s learned from us is… we give him a lot of food. Canny little sod!