Our New Pets

 So, for several weeks, Carter has been begging and yes, I mean BEGGING for a degu.  What is a degu, you ask?  Well, take a look at the pictures below, because apparently, his mom and dad are big suckers and at Christmas time, they gave in!



This is Carter holding Buddy.  Buddy is a little more friendly than his brother Spunky.  Look what a snappy dresser Carter is too! 

So, once the crazy parents (yea, us)  decided to get a degu, we found out that degus do much better in pairs.  What?  Those crazy parents thought they had only agreed to one degu - not two!  UGH!  Anyway, two degus were purchased and on Christmas morning, Carter received the gift of degu food.  Well, actually a bag of chinchilla food and a bag of guinea pig food (they mix them together for degus).  When he opened them up, he looked at his parents like, "What is this for?"  We had to explain to him what it was for.  He was pretty dumbfounded as those parents pretty much shut him down telling him he was not getting a degu for Christmas.  Ha!

 Anyway, as you know, Christmas was on a Saturday, so the troop got to pick up our two new furry friends on Monday.  Well, as you can imagine, Monday did not come soon enough!  We headed into town (we were still staying at Grama's) and collected our two handpicked furballs.  Since then, we have discovered that one degu - Spunky - is true to his name.  He loves to eat food out of your hand - particularly sunflower seeds, and even chirps when you run out.  But, Spunky does not love to be handled (we think Tyler may have had something to do with that as Tyler was bit by one of the degus a few days after we got them.  He is not allowed to handle them anymore).

Wow, this is long winded.  Anyway, so far, so good.  Carter is loving them and so are the dogs.  Yes, we have to claim them (as per the dog whisperer) and that is slow going.  In other words, we need to make the dogs know that they are not allowed by them and certainly shouldn't be excitable around them. 

It is a good thing that the boys already know how to take care of degus - they know more than we do because the grade four class pet is a degu (that is where the longing came from).  All three older boys have had the same grade four teacher and have all had a chance to take the class pet home for the weekend.  In fact, when Jaren was in grade four, he had it for Christmas and summer holidays.

Are we crazy?  Maybe.  Want to know something else?  They are both boys.  So it is now 8:1.