R.I.P. Rosalina

There seems to be bad hamster juju in the Lopez house. A week after we purchased Rosalina as a replacement for Hammy [the dead hamster with ginormous testicles], she died. Rosalina was the sweetest critter ever--she didn't bite, she let us pick her up and play with her and she was super cute, which is clearly a quality that determines hamster sweetness. Needless to say [if you have been following these blogs regularly], we are down to one hamster: Clover--and she needs hamster Ritilan in a major way.

So. What are we doing wrong with the hamsters? Hammy lived a good four months, but I have heard that hamsters live for years. In Rosalina's case, I have come up with the following theories:

We did feed her a lot of sugar and some of it included chocolate [something we did not do for Hammy], so maybe that was the cause of death. [In our defense, she was extremely cute stuffing her cheeks with cookies that we just couldn't stop!]

Maybe Clover was envious of all of the attention we showered on Rosalina and resorted to murder while Rosie was sleeping. [Dun-Dun-Duuun!]

Too much human contact from picking her up so much. [Okay, quite possible]

Petco sold us a sick hamster, making Rosalina doomed from the beginning.**

There is poison in the hamster food we purchased. [This is a possibility, as Hammy died less than a week after we switched]

Regardless of the cause, Rosalina was given her own little checks box [thank goodness Andy recently ordered more checks] and buried next to Hammy. I'm sure that they are frolicking through the clouds in hamster heaven, happy as can be--and maybe even making hamster ghost babies!

**Petco gives a 15-day hamster warranty and Rosalina [Hamster God rest her soul] died within that time frame; however, we thought it silly to replace a ten-dollar hamster. Besides, two hamsters were SO messy and stinky--much more so than one--so maybe this was a blessing in disguise…Just the wrong hamster died.