Featured Shelter Gerbils For March 31st, 2008

I'm going to start something new on the Twin Squeaks Blog: displaying gerbils who are in shelters across the U.S. and need to find loving homes! This is a cause that is very close to my heart, because my gerbils Faith and Hope both came from our local Humane Society, and so did Buster.

UPDATE: Thank you to Linette for your efforts to find homes for the gerbils in St. Paul, and thank you, too, for letting me know that they've all been adopted! Great news!

Today's featured gerbils are a huge group of gerbils in St. Paul, Minnesota. The Animal Humane Society there recently took in 37 gerbils who were rescued from becoming snake food!

Update: April 19th: All of the gerbils in St. Paul have been adopted. Thank you so much to everyone who helped these gerbils find homes!

Gerbils Help Scientists Learn More About How We Hear

I ran across an interesting article today about how scientists used gerbils to learn about our sense of hearing.

Specifically, scientists studied the brain activity of gerbils as they distinguished between sounds of different pitches and frequencies. Scientists believe that this research can help them understand how we can pick out a single voice in a crowded, noisy room. They also believe that this research with gerbils may one day lead to the development of better hearing aids that can distinguish the sources of different sounds.

Come To The 2008 New England Gerbil Show!

The American Gerbil Society's 2008 New England Gerbil Show is rapidly approaching!

This year's show will be in Nashua, New Hampshire and takes place on May 17th.

Gerbil breeders and owners from around the country will be at the show to show off their gerbils, sell gerbil merchandise, and even adopt out gerbil pups! It's a great opportunity to learn more about gerbils.

AGS members can also enter their gerbils in a gerbil show (just like a dog show, except with gerbils). Although judging occurs behind closed doors, at the end of the show, winners are announced. You can see what a prize-winning gerbil looks like!

I will be a judge at the New England Gerbil Show. Several of our gerbils; including Herman, Sebastian, Mike, Toby, Grace, and Tori; will be at the show as well!

Click the banner below the photos to learn more about the New England Gerbil Show. Hope to see you there!

Sid & Scrat Are This Week's Featured Gerbils

Kirsty sent us an adorable photo of her gerbils Sid and Scrat. They are this week's featured gerbils on our Gerbil Picture Of The Week page.

Sid and Scrat also made an appearance on the Twin Squeaks site a little over a year ago. You can see their earlier photo from the December 23rd, 2006 edition of the Gerbil Picture Of The Week. They've grown up a lot since then!

If you would like to see your gerbils on our Picture Of The Week page, please send your gerbil photo to us, and we will consider using it! (We get a lot of gerbil photos, so it sometimes takes a while for us to put them on the Web site. Please be patient. We try to use as many photos as we possibly can!)

Happy Easter From Grace & Tori!

Grace and Tori would like to wish everyone a very Happy Easter!

After they kicked all of the Easter eggs out of their Easter basket, they discovered that the Easter Gerbil left some Cheerios and Kashi in the bottom of the basket. :)

Grace and Tori hope that your Easter is as wonderful as theirs!

Sonja's Amazing Agility Gerbil!

Sonja in Germany has an amazingly talented Burmese gerbil who is trained to do show jumping and run agility courses. I could watch her gerbil Burma run these agility courses all day! This is amazing. Bravo, Sonja and Burma! Job well done!!!

One Of The Reasons Hope Was So Special

As I posted recently, our beloved gerbil Hope passed away at the end of January. She was over four years old.

Last night, I ran across this video that I took of Hope last fall. You can see that she walked a little bit awkward because of the arthritis in her hips, but she still really enjoyed coming out of the tank for playtime.

What I really like about this video, though, is that it shows Hope hopping off the couch onto my leg, where she perched on my knee and watched TV with me. Hope loved to do this, and she'd spend a lot of time hanging out with me on the couch.

I really love older gerbils, because they get very mellow and friendly as they age. Hope, though, was very special and was the friendliest gerbil I've ever known.

A Video Of Grace Taking A Sand Bath

I thought many of you who are new to gerbils would like to see what it looks like when a gerbil takes a sand bath. This is a video that I shot in the fall of my gerbil Grace taking a sand bath. You can see her rolling in the sand and having a great time. When she rolls in the sand, it cleans her fur and makes her coat soft and healthy. Because gerbils are desert animals, they use the sand for bathing rather than water.

Sebastian Is Growing Up So Fast!

It's hard to believe how little Sebastian was when he first came home to Twin Squeaks with his dad Herman at the end of December. He's grown up a lot and will be as big as his dad one of these days!

Sebastian also looks a lot different now than he did a couple of months ago. Sebastian is a nutmeg gerbil. This is a color that changes as a gerbil grows up. When a nutmeg gerbil is a pup, his fur is a light golden color. When he's about 6-7 weeks old, his fur starts to get a little bit dusty looking, and then he starts to get dark ticking that gradually spreads until he gets his adult coloring.

Starting on Page 7 of Herman & Sebastian's Photo Album, you can watch Sebastian's transformation from his pup coloring to how he looks today. What a transformation!

Hope, 12/25/2003 - 1/31/2008

On January 31st, our beloved gerbil Hope passed away at the age of 4 years, 1 month, and 6 days. Hope was a very special gerbil, not only because of how long she lived but also because of the way she lived. I've never met a gerbil gentler or friendlier than Hope, and I'm not sure I've ever met a gerbil who had such a passion for life either.

Even when Hope was very old and the arthritis in her hips made her clumsy, she never stopped running in her exercise wheel or begging to come out of the tank for playtime. She loved to run back and forth on the couch, and she also liked to sit right at the edge of the couch and watch TV, too. :)

Hope and her late sister Faith came to Twin Squeaks from the Capital Humane Society, where they were surrendered by their previous owners due to a pet allergy. It was obvious that they took great care of Faith and Hope, and I feel bad that they weren't able to keep Faith and Hope. They were wonderful, wonderful gerbils, and after I adopted her, Hope provided nearly 4 years of happiness in our home. Hope's previous owners and the shelter both took great care of her and her sister, and I just want to say thank you to both of them.

Hope was active right up until the last few hours of her life, which she spent resting in my hand and occasionally drinking organic apple juice and eating pieces of Puffed Kashi. When it was time for her to go, she simply fell asleep in my hand and crossed over the Rainbow Bridge. It was a very peaceful and gentle end for an equally gentle and kind gerbil. It's hard to believe that Hope has already been gone for a month, because her presence is still felt here at Twin Squeaks everyday. Rest In Peace, Hope. We miss you...