The Love Hog

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A guest post by the Broken Girl.

The love hog

I have a pet hedgehog. He was featured in Kevin’s (Legiron’s) Denmark post with pictures. I’m sure his ego has grown by miles.

Several weeks back I told Kevin that I was thinking about doing a post about Igor the hedgehog but I wasn’t sure if it would be too strange. He told me the blog lives on strange. So here you’re finally getting the story of how I got a pet hedgehog.

igorblogpostLike many of my stories this one begins with my mum. My mum has for many years been brooding on my behalf. She just loves the idea of grandkids.

Now ever since I was a kid I’ve always loved hedgehogs so when one day surfing on the internet I saw that you could get a pet hedgehog I started telling my mum that the day I wanted a child more than a pet hedgehog that would be the day she’d get her grandkids. I didn’t think I’d ever actually get one, they were a bit expensive so I just sighed at pictures.

A year or two of me saying I’d rather want a pet hedgehog than a kid went by and one morning my mum sent me a text – “Call me right away I’ve got good news!” So call her I did. You don’t mess around when the mothership summons you. Anyway she’d gotten her hands on a bit of money so she called excited to say that she wanted to give a bit to me and my brothers. As my mum always says “When it rains on the priest it dribbles on his assistant”.

First thing I did was replace my beat up and cracked iPhone. And then I started the hunt for a pet hedgehog. To my luck I found one near where my parents live that wasn’t too expensive either. So off I went.

Igor is an Albino African pygmy hedgehog who was born on Valentine’s Day. He was half a year when I bought him and it was love at first sight.

The woman I bought him from told me that the breeder who had him first couldn’t find a buyer for him and there was new babies coming. So the family I bought him from had taken him in temporarily so he wouldn’t get put to sleep. But with several dogs, lizards, snakes and a new human baby they didn’t have time for the hedgehog. They’d had several adverts up offering him up for sale but I was the first one who responded.

Therefore when I got him he didn’t even have a name other than ‘love hog’ because of his birthday. One look at his tiny fangs and red eyes and I named him Igor after Doctor Frankenstein’s helper.

Leaving with Igor hissing in a small box I went straight to the pet shop to get a big rabbit cage, a huge hamster wheel and other fun stuff for my newest pet. Having found the perfect spot for him and letting him settle in for a few days it was now time for the big test, taking him up for a look around his new home.

igorwheelAnd then came a bit of frustration. Igor didn’t come alone. He had fleas. The poor boy was scratching away and I had no idea what to do. So I called the local wildlife hedgehog organization. She told me they used the thing you drip in the neck of cats but she wasn’t sure if it would be okay to use it on a pygmy hedgehog so she sent me on to a vet who specialized in exotic animals. He told me to use the cat thing, but by then I’d Googled a bit and the hedgehog forums said don’t use that. I was back to square one.

Now I was so very lucky that my good friend Jeremy knew a vet in the USA so he promised me he’d ask her. Flea shampoo for kittens. It worked wonders!

Finally I had a clean, flea free and happy hedgehog. I just had to make him come out of his defense position. It took me half a year. I’d take him up every night. He’d hide in my shirt and I’d watch TV.

igorhandWe quickly found a routine and it turned out he doesn’t like all TV shows. CSI was okay, How I met your mother annoyed him when I laughed and X-factor with all the screaming made him hiss and puff and curl up in a ball. His favorite is Doctor Who.

These days he’s so comfortable with me that he’ll run around on me and lower his spikes so I can pet him. As a real man, his favorite place is to lie in my cleavage. He’s even a few times fallen asleep there.

Having Igor reminded me that sometimes animals and people just need a bit of patience before they trust.

And as the poem says “Love is patient. Love is kind”.

– Broken Girl

 

24 thoughts on “The Love Hog”

  2. This Blog is so nice I almost want a pet Hedgehog. But I am a bit too tuned into wild ones.
    I once had two Shar Peis who really liked Hedgehogs, and brought them into the house with monotonous regularity, which is how I once finished up with a Hedgehog Flea. This was not funny, and I doubt that your Hedgehog had the real thing.
    My entire chest, God forbid breasts, where covered with lumps the size of Vesuvius, and I was taking pain killers hourly. It was that bad.
    I loped them over the wall into the next door garden in the end, and then spent the next five years loping over all of my Slugs and Snails as well. Nothing wrong with ecology. And my neighbours weren’t in residence all that often anyway. And I never kill anything if I can possibly avoid it.

    But you are now sounding really good. And I am so pleased for you.

    Actually, I have got an eight year old, rescued Pug at the moment, who almost immediately went blind and demented. But we get by. She thinks she is called “Whoops” because that is what I say to her every time she nearly bumps into something.
    Sadly, she is not a lap dog. She doesn’t want to be cuddled. But there you go.

    Be well. That matters to me for you.

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    • Aww your pug sounds wonderful. I have a long coated dachshund who’s almost 7 years old. She is very much a lap dog. She’ll either be on my lap or curled up against me or be on her big pillow in front of the garden window doing her daily neighborhood watch.

      I’ve just been hit by the spring bugs so she’s been extra attentive.
      I hope all is well with you and yours

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  4. I want that Hedgehog! I love them, I used to have some in my garden but they seem to have disappeared now. I found a very large one dead but with no obvious injury and occasionally see one. In my last house I had two who came to be fed, wish I could attract them back.

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  5. Albino Hedgehog? Cute little guy. I’d heard the thing about de-flead Hedgehogs getting sick if you killed off their fleas, but that’s apparently a reaction to the wrong kind of medication, like common domestic dog and cat flea treatments. I’m told a light dusting of Johnsons Rid-Mite works wonders but check the labels first.

    For a comprehensive reference, try the ‘Manual of Exotic Pet Practice’ by Mark A. Mitchell and Thomas N. Tully (Available online via Google books). The ‘Ectoparasites’ section on page 445 looks useful. Page 446 is also worth a peruse. It has a table of suitable medications.

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  6. We overwintered an underweight hedgehog a few years ago. Until its input stabilised on “Chappie” its output smelled worse than our cat’s – and that’s truly awful! It must be the diet of icky wriggly things they live on. I worked out later that that exercise in humanity cost us £42 in dogfood . . .

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  9. I’m a great fan of hedgehogs. And your pet is particularly cute. I love dogs and ferrets too. Currently the owner of three Maltese Terriers. Amazing personalities and incredibly loving.

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