Back in 1988, I found myself in a situation that made me panic. I was sitting in my bedroom, letting my female hamster, Joni, play on the floor, when, out of nowhere, she spotted a small hole in the corner of the room where the floorboards didn't quite meet the wall. Before I could move to block her path, she ran straight down into the pitch-black void beneath the floorboards.
I was terrified. I kept thinking, what if she can't find her way back out and starves to death, squeaking for help that I couldn't give her? I immediately turned off the TV, which was showing the film The Outlaw Josey Wales, so that the room would be in silence, the better for me to hear her shuffling around beneath the floorboards.
I then got the small hamster ladder from her cage and lowered it down into the hole, hoping that she would somehow come across it in the dark and climb out. Then all I could do was wait anxiously, listening to every slight scratch she made beneath the floorboards.
What I didn't know at the time was that, to a hamster, being under floorboards is no big deal. Unlike humans, who, if they were small enough to crawl beneath floorboards, would probably have no idea how to navigate their way out of such a dark labyrinth, hamsters are natural nocturnal burrowers. They can navigate tunnel systems using their sense of smell.
From the second Joni disappeared down the hole, she was leaving behind a scent trail that she could use to smell her way back to the entrance. In effect, she had her own chemical GPS system.
After what felt like hours, but was only around 20 minutes, her tiny face appeared at the edge of the hole. She had found her way back and climbed up the ladder. She looked at my relieved face as if to say, “Why were you so worried? This is what I do”. She was entirely unfazed by the ordeal. I ran over to her, picked her up and kissed her.
She was completely covered in underfloor dust and looked like a Victorian urchin chimney sweep. It took her days of licking her fur coat to get rid of the soot.
She was a resilient, clever little pet, and although her loss to the fatal hamster disease wet tail six months later was heartbreaking for me, that floorboard adventure is one of my favourite memories of her.
It was terrifying at the time, but it proved just how remarkable hamsters are.
