Little mister grumpy man.

I am now a proud pet owner. I have never had a pet that has been soley mine before, and I am kind of nervous at the prospect of being a single mother trying to raise a grumpy pre-teen hedgehog. Luckily for me, one of my roommates, Linus already has a zoo of pets in his bedroom and I can always go ask him for advice.

I found a listing online saying free hedgehog to a good home. For some time now I have wanted my own pet, as Linus can attest too, and when I saw the listing I was ecstatic. Of course I had to ok it with the rest of Flock Hall, make sure no one would have any nervous breakdowns if I got it. The hedgehog's original name is Kitsch, I wasn't real fond of it, and once everyone kept calling him Kit because they misheard I decided to rename him. So without further ado, World meet Asterix; Asterix meet the world!







According to Linus, who for sometime worked in pet shop that had hedgehogs, Asterix is quite a sociable little guy, but don't let that fool you, until he comes out of his cage he is quite the grumpy bear. We are working on that though. I have been reading a lot of material online about habit and behavior, and all that good stuff, researching as much as I can, what not to do, what to do to encourage socialization...even how to bathe hedgehogs. People say that either hedgehogs love the water or they hate it, so last night we decided to have a trial run at the whole bath thing, and it didn't turn out too badly. Asterix isn't really that big a fan of the water, but he doesn't mind it either. He does like the part of drying off because that means he can bury into the towel and hide from the scary world.






However, in order to get all of the bedding he manages to get stuck in his quills, we have use a tooth brush and brush the wrong way, which Asterix hates with a passion. Linus graciously enough offered to do it, so I wouldn't be the one held responsible for him being pissed off.

This is his "I hate you all you little fuckers..." in a Cartman voice, look. And yes it is not just you he is quite the chunker, we're working on trimming down his diet and looking for ways for him to get some exercise. I am looking at buying a large wheel for him, to put in his cage and a large hamster ball with very small holes, so he cannot get his wee little hedgie feet caught in them. Also, I am going to get some ferret toys for him to play with, and look at hedgehog-proofing a part of the house so I can just let him run. I am looking at maybe even getting him a bigger cage too, currently he is in a tote which actually works pretty well for him, but on the off chance he needs bigger space, the new cage will be in the back of my mind.

And for all his work, and putting up with our hi-jinks last night, Asterix gets a treat before going back to bed.


We tried to snap a photo of him actually eating it...but damn, the only thing Asterix does fast is eat apparently.

So there ya have it! My cutest little, most adorable grump ball in the world! Yes you all can come over and visit him and play with him.