Child fooled by new hamster

Area mother Cynthia Barth was relieved to find that her four year-old child Stephanie was fooled into believing that a hamster purchased that morning at a local PETCO was actually the child’s beloved pet Iggy, who was found dead in his cage on Monday morning.

Ms. Barth visited the pet store out of desperation after her child’s grieving over her missing pet caused her to miss three consecutive days of school. Though she had offered to buy her daughter a new hamster or maybe even a puppy, Stephanie was insistent that Ms. Barth “bring Iggy back,” threatening to “never ever go to school again.”

“Ms. Barth was quite adamant that we find a dark brown hamster with light brown spots,” reported Reggie Thorpe, the PETCO associate who assisted Cynthia with her purchase. “Unfortunately, we didn’t really have anything like that in the store. But we sent her home with a cute little guy and we were able to throw in a little mini hamster soccer ball for free.”

Barth was worried that her child, whom she described as “very bright and very observant,” would catch on the charade. “She loved that Iggy, even though she never seemed to pay much attention to him,” Barth said of her daughter. “In fact, she was always complaining that Iggy would pee on her hand all the time. But man, did she ever throw a lot of tantrums when we told her Iggy was gone.”

Only able to find a white hamster with black eyes, Cynthia surreptitiously slipped the animal into Iggy’s cage while her daughter was watching television and called her into the room when she made sure the new hamster was settled in. “Look, Stephanie! Iggy’s back!” she told her daughter. “He only ran away after all!”

Though the child was suspicious at first, Cynthia was able to satisfy her curiosity about the new hamster’s radically different appearance. “He probably turned all white because he went through a lot of stress when he was lost and he missed us so much. And he’s just a little smaller because he couldn’t find anything to eat out in the wild.” When quizzed about the new hamster’s shorter tail, Ms. Barth assured her daughter that she was “just imagining things again.”

Stephanie was reported to be “very happy” with what she was told was the return of her beloved Iggy. “At first, I thought he looked different, but then Mommy told me that he really wasn’t and this time when he came home, he didn’t even pee in my hand. But I think I'm going to name him Dora now,” the preschooler said. She went on to say that though she was joyful that her hamster was back where he belonged, she was still troubled to be without her favorite Barbie, which she just remembered she had lost last month at her friend Karen’s house, though she was confident that her mother would return that to her before the weekend.