Welcome to Gaia! ::

My friend Elizabeth loves animals more than I do. Possibly because she has more animals than I do. Her family, in their single-family home, has seven dogs, four cats, four fish, two hamsters, and one rat between them. (Their house smells kinda funny.) One of the cats and both hamsters and the rat are hers personally. She wants to work with animals for a living. She was even generous enough to babysit Twiggy while my parents were on vacation.

(For those of you who don't know, my current dorm room doesn't allow animals. ._. My hamster, Twiggy, has to stay at my parents' house.)

In return for petsitting Twiggy during my parents' cruise, she asked me to watch her rat and hamsters while she and her family were on vacation. Feed them, water them, check their health. (One of the hamsters recently had wet tail, and the rat is currently suffering from a cold. His sneezes are adorable) So, in my living room is three cages- one for each hamster, and one for Nihm.

Willow and Slyder are very cute. They're panda bear hamsters, black and white. (They look like cows and it makes me giggle.) Unfortunately, they are hateful, spiteful little bitches. I pick them up to check their health, they bare their teeth at me and give me the death look. Yes. These hamsters have a death look. So, I can't play with them too much.

Nihm, however, is the rat. He is the sweetest boy you will ever meet. He's a hooded rat, with a white body and cream hood, and his tail has freckles. (Oddly enough, one of his freckles is green. I can't help but wonder if her little brother got at him with the magic marker.) He does have a cold, so his nose gets a little bloody, and my mom and I have to give him a little bit of medicine. It's cute when he takes his medicine- I scruff him so his mouth stays open and my mom (the nurse) carefully squirts it into his cheeks. He starts licking anything else, including the paper towel we put under him and my finger, to get the taste out of his mouth.

He likes to run on arms and sit on shoulders, and scamper about his cage. I'll run my finger along the bars of his cage and he'll follow it up and push his nose on it. Whenever someone comes within about 20 feet of the cage, he'll stick his head up and look for who is coming to play with him. Rats are social creatures, and he seems very lonely. I'd love to spend time with him.

Unfortunately, I seem to be horribly allergic to him.

Not the sneezing kind of allergic. When he runs on me, and his little claws dig into me, they raise into itchy welts and hives. They are godawful! Like little mosquito bites. In addition, I tickle his belly sometimes and he actually wets himself. My skin welts up if it comes into contact with his urine as well. I originally thought it could be the aspen bedding in his cage (because I'm definitely allergic to that) or the ammonia in the urine, but no matter what, it's hard to play with him when he makes me itch so bad!

I still like to sit near his cage and tap his nose through the bars, and call his name. He's my Nihm-Nihm, even if I am allergic to his love.

Hmm, my dad suggests I put a towel over myself, but the problem is that those little claws go directly though my clothes as it is.

Luna I have a kitten right? And my kitten is very hyper and very not declawed. I'm practically covered in kitty scratches, and they are just like normal scratches except I got them from a cat. I think Ezzy can probably tell allergic reaction scratches from normal scratches, she has a hamster and hamster has claws.

Thanks for the input, guys. I just have to be careful with those feetsies. XD

And I'm not allergic to my kitten, and I don't have any reaction to scratches.
and again, ezzy knows she's allergic. :3