Saving Pinky's Pups

by Dennis O'Connor

“Daddy!!!! The hamsters are having babies!” screamed my youngest daughter Erin.

I thought of the pet store clerk who assured us we were getting two prime female hamsters. “No worries about ‘pups’ folks! You got a couple of healthy females there!”

pinky the hamster and her babies We kept the gold and white Syrian Hamsters in a cage in my son’s bedroom. The musky rodent smells mingled naturally with the underlying odors of a little boy’s room. “Pinky and the Brain” stuffed their cheek pouches with seed and blasted along in their exercise wheel. The kids giggled as the two busy fur-balls jumped on each other and scurried around the cage.

Obviously, something else had been going on as well, since “Pinky is having babies!” RIGHT NOW! I needed to know the basics of hamster birth: Right Now!

I turned to the Internet! I searched for answers! (Understand this all happened pre-Google when a 2400-baud modem running at 56k was hot technology and surfing the web was just getting started.)

Boot up. Dial tone. Dial in. Log in. Start Netscape Navigator 2.0. Login to Alta Vista.

(The kids are screaming and my wife is yelling in the background.)

In a panic, I type in pinky and the brain… and get these weird cartoon characters.

I need to concentrate. Focus!

This is better: “hamster birth” Much better! I click the first result. Wait for the page to download line by line. Rats! No text. Just hamster pictures.

Focus. Concentrate on what you need to find. How about: hamster birth behavior? Yes!

I land on the British Hamster Association Home Page. Is this a Monty Python site? Do I see: "Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries!" No, clearly these folks are serious about their hamsters.

As I hear Erin shriek again, “They’re here! Pinky’s Babies are here!” My eye falls on this line: “Cannibalism is a common and distressing problem for breeders of Syrian hamsters.”

Luckily I was able to grab Pinky and put her into solitary, just in time.

Information Just in Time

It took me about 15 minutes to track down the ‘just in time’ information I needed. Having a good book at hand or calling a knowledgeable friend, (someone other than the Pet store clerk) might have been faster, but in the end, the hamster buffs of England came through and Pinky’s pups were saved.

I wonder now if using operators would have done the job? How about “hamster behavior” birth -monty -python; would that have worked?

While writing this article I tried a number of common sense queries and found all the hamster lore I needed in just a few minutes. I didn’t really need operators. The web has grown and there is so much information being generated by a smart mob of hamster fans all you need are a few well chosen keywords and the ability to scan the snippets. You will find what you seek!