Little Dwizzi

I bought Lil’ Dwizzi on Sept. 1 1995 right after my first hedgehog, Dwizzil died on Aug. 12, 1995. Lil’ Dwizzi was his replacement. I begged my mom to take me down to the pet store to get her, she reluctantly agreed and took me. Lil’ Dwizzi was a young adult hedgehog when I got her. I saw the exact same qualities in her as I did in Dwizzil. She was definitely her own person. And so was Dwizzil. She would always put up a fuss whenever I picked her up and held her, always hissing, cracking (defensive noise), etc.

She was real easy to tame down, and finally hold. I usually have a tendency to write about my pets after they had died, however, I feel I should write down everything that I can recall about Lil’ Dwizzi now because my memory seems to fail me from time to time.

I was 18 years old when I got Lil’ Dwizzi, or Dwizzi (Dweezie) as I call her now. When I got a part time job at McDonald’s, working as a cleaning person I used to get meals half price. I would bring them home & sometimes share them with her. One night, I brought home a chicken patty. It tasted okay. However, it was warm when I brought it home, broke off a piece and gave it to Lil’ Dwizzi — never knowing that by the next day we’d both be very sick. Anyway as a week went by, she got worse. Sometimes she wouldn’t even touch her food, lost a lot of weight and was cold. On New Years day of 1996 we took her to the vet, and they told me that she may die that night. Fearing that it may be the last time I would hold her, I wrapped her in a baby blanket and told her that I will always love her. Dwizzi stayed at the vet for a night, by the end of that night they called to tell me that she was still alive. She eventually pulled through. She had two litters of hog lets. The first litter was okay– however, she was very nervous. There was five in all. I got extremely attached to the runt. The runt was very small, and I held it and would care for it. Out of the entire litter two or three lived. The runt died. When Dwizzi had her second litter, none of those lived.

One year in the summer of ’97 we had a big garden. We were going to have corn, that is until Dwizzi got a hold of it. Then we had very dried up corn stalks. I would let her outside and run through the garden. However, I had to watch her like a hawk. She was easy to catch. She would roll into a ball with her quills on end. Unlike Dwizzil, I did get lots of pictures with her. Dwizzi truly is quite a little animal, I don’t think I’ll get another hedgehog again. Don’t get me wrong– I loved every one of them– I feel that after Dwizzi passes away– I will have drawn a close to keeping hedgehogs. And simply because they are no longer attainable here in town, at least not through a pet store. One thing that I’ve noticed about Dwizzi is whenever she is awake, she’ll run circles. I don’t know if she’s doing it out of sheer boredom or if she doing it for the fun of it. But she’s old now. In the winter she tries to hibernate. In the summer, she’s usually up at night running in her cage or clanking the water bottle on the side of her cage. Hedgehogs are nocturnal by nature. They are night creatures in other words– which doesn’t bother me at all cause I’m a night person myself. Lil’ Dwizzi officially died on the 23 of Sept. 2000 at 9:44 p.m. – The End.

Written: 1999, 2000, Sept. 23, 2000.


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