My dear hamster Ellie died today afternoon.

I adore animals and I really loved my Ellie. She was a white-with-black-ears Syrian, and she lived for two years and two months, which means she died of old age.

When she was 5 months old, Ellie lost her left hind foot in an accident. Nobody knows what really happened. She escaped the cage with her brothers and sisters, and when she was found, we noticed her foot was black. A few days later, the foot fell of, and after that, she was acting normally, eating, playing etc.

Ellie was not my hamster back then, but I adopted her after the accident, because I knew it would be really hard for her to find a nice home- people don’t really want disabled hamsters as pets. I’m glad I adopted Ellie, because she was an adorable little hammie, sweet and surprisingly tame for a female (female Syrians tend to be a bit aggressive).

Ellie mated with Vito, and had two babies. Yes, there were only two of them in the litter, both males- which was a bit surprising, since there are usually a) at least 5 cubs in the litter, b) there are often more females than males. And Ellie had only two cubs, both males, Chip and Dale.

She died of old age, but I still gonna miss her. She was not just a pet hamster, she was my little Ellie, you know what I mean?

Here’s a really short clip of Ellie and her son Chip (he died in June 2007, my poor Chip); he’s outside the cage, and Ellie is inside. Of course, he didn’t know she was his mother and was interested in her as an ordinary female.

RIP, my darling, my little Ellie.