Before we had children I had to prove I was a responsible adult. We did this via the medium of hamsters. I had 6 in total. They all died. Fortunately they all (bar one) died of old age, so I passed the test.
Obi was my first and he was lovely but it was Vader that was my favourite. He was a middle aged rescue hamster, already a little grey around the chops, when he came to us from RSPCA Southridge. Wifey had found and rescued a lovely fluffy flop-eared rabbit that someone had stupidly thought they’d release into our park to run free with it’s wild brethen. In reality it was starving and had probably been the victim of rabbit gang rape- pet rabbits are really not equipped for a life in the wild.
Wifey did a sort of pet swap at the RSPCA rescue centre and returned with Vader. The RSPCA centre dealt with small pets as well as the usual cats and dogs and larger domestic animals, which was great for a hamster lover like me. Of course they checked that we were suitable hamster wranglers before Vader was allowed to leave, like they do for all pets, big or small, but we already had one well loved rodent so they deemed us responsible.
Once Vader escaped from his ball and instead of going to ground, he waddled into the sitting room and sat in the middle of the floor until I picked him up. All he wanted was to be loved, he didn’t understand why he was in a rescue centre, and most of the animals there don’t either.