Goober’s Journey

This morning I woke up about an hour before the alarm went off. I kind of felt some movement between Sherree and I, and I assumed Sherree had a twitch or something. I tried to go back to sleep but realized there was still a feeling of something moving, but I disregarded it--it was probably Mikey. But then I noticed I felt movement between my feet and I just had to get up to look and see what it was.

I could see some movement, but it was dark so I wasn't sure. Could that really be Goober the Hamster? Maybe it's a mouse or something. I finally sat up and carefully reached to touch the thing on our bed--I didn't want to be bit--and it was indeed Goober. How did she get here? I don't think she was running in her ball last night, so we didn't forget to put her back in the cage. Had she really gotten out? And had she really made it all the way to our bed?

I carried Goober back to her cage and found the door open, slid her back in, and closed the door. Pinball likes to watch her but couldn't open the door without knocking the whole cage over. She must have figured out how to push the door open.

And that's where it gets really interesting: last night, Goober pushed the door open, then jumped 35-3/4 inches from the bookcase down to the floor. Pinball was almost certainly waiting right there, watching. She loves to watch Goober, but is a little scared of her and always keeps a little distance. At this point the shortest route for her was to go about 15 feet down the hall and through the living room, then turn left and go about 18 feet through the dining room and into our bedroom. Another left and about five more feet to get to the foot of the bed where the comforter is hanging off and she can climb up to visit with us. Phew!

But really, I don't think Goober set out with such strict directions or intention. She almost certainly checked out the whole apartment running everywhere she could. She loves to run. Sherree tells me she read somewhere that they typically run about three miles each day, in the wild. I wonder if she got that kind of workout last night. We just tried a little test, setting her out on the ground. She scurried in a few directions before heading off into Sherree's bathroom, where she climbed into Pinball's food dish to nibble at some food. I have no doubt something similar happened last night!