Just give this story a look before you or anyone you know buys a hedgehog on a whim from your "friendly" neighborhood pet store.
September 2007
I had been dying to a pet to keep in my dorm room. I was lonely, with not many friends on campus, and I thought getting a pet would solve my problems. While browsing a Facebook group, I saw some pictures of a hedgehog. I started looking them up, read a book (looked at the pictures) about them in the library, and browsed C&Q lightly. That weekend, I was home and thought, "Oh, I could get a hedgehog this weekend and bring it back to school for Monday."
I ended up going to the pet shop and looked at three hogs. They all were housed together. Two males and a female. They had no igloo and their wheel was one of those mesh yellow ones that is just a deathtrap waiting to happen. The girl picked one up with THICK leather gloves. It started clicking like crazy. I knew I was going to be getting a more aggressive hedge because I couldn't be bothered to wait for an available breeder. Finally, she pulled out the smallest and it hissed but eventually unrolled when I held it. Obviously, I was totally in love and had to buy it. I bought a cage with only 2.5 square feet total. Plastic bowls. All of the rookie mistakes you hear about, I made. I did, however, manage to remember the right food and bedding, so it wasn't a total disaster.
When I got the hedgehog home. I realized I had bought the female. It never even entered my mind that she could have been pregnant. Thankfully she wasn't, but she had been nipped at a lot which was evident by some small wounds. From the moment she got to my house she was huffy constantly. She bit me all the time, even at the cleanest of hands. She stayed rolled up and hissy whenever anyone was around. In general, she had the temperament of a neglected adult. It was extremely distressing.
October 2007
A month later I contacted the pet store to ask about her lineage because I was concerned about WHS. They told me they could not release that information. I told them I simply wanted to contact their distributor to see the likelihood that WHS was in her bloodline. I wasn't out to cause trouble, I just wanted to know. They sent me a series of aggressive messages telling me I had no right to know where my animal came from. To this day I have no idea if my lovely Truffles is from a bad bloodline. I also know it is ridiculous that I even tried to find out. Pet stores are like that, I just didn't know.
2007-2008
Now, for a year and a half Truffles made no improvement with her attitude. She have never had a health problem, eats like a pig, maintains a healthy weight, never tried to hibernate. Really, she has caused me no trouble in nearly two years. Except no matter what I did I couldn't get her to lose that bratty behavior. When I switched her to liners, thinking she might be nicer, she actually started to bite more. I tried all kinds of things during this time and I was getting very upset that she was so aggressive every night. The sad thing was that I was in the Netherlands for a short time, and I got to work with wild European hedgehogs while volunteering. I had more success socializing a wild animal over four weeks than I did with my own pet in a year.
You have to know, I have read every thread on this forum and on C&H. I really tried to make up for the rushed way I got into owning a hedgehog. So much could have gone wrong for me during this whole experience, I'm fortunate that it didn't. Looking back on all of this, it's crazy how many wrong/bad turns her health could have taken due to my not knowing how to properly care for her. Can you imagine if she had been pregnant? What if she had some medical problem I didn't even know how to recognize. And the thing is, I paid just as much as I would have from my local breeder. Also, as of today, it has been two weeks since Truffles huffed at me. From September 2007 to February 2009 she had the worst temperament, the kind I only read about for rehomes or rescues. Keep in mind, I was doing everything possible to better her standard of living the entire time.
I know this was lengthy, but I can't stress enough that while it may be tempting to just rush out and buy a hedgehog because they are new and exotic (and freaking adorable); don't do it. Spend some time and do the research, get a home/cage set up ahead of time. Buy an adequate method of heating your hog. Buy from a registered breeder who can walk you through the process and help you if you have questions. While I have had an extreme amount of luck (and three times as much patience), you may not. Each hedgehog is an individual and it is possible to get nice hedgies from pet stores and grumpy ones from breeders.
What you can control is buying from someone who can tell you your hedgehog's lineage, being well informed, and being sure that a hedgehog is the right pet for you for the next 4-8 years, not just this week.
Edit: I realize some people's only option is a pet store. I'm not saying "shame on you." I'm just sharing my experience so that if someone does have the choice of going to a breeder, maybe they will choose that instead of rushing into a pet store hog.
September 2007
I had been dying to a pet to keep in my dorm room. I was lonely, with not many friends on campus, and I thought getting a pet would solve my problems. While browsing a Facebook group, I saw some pictures of a hedgehog. I started looking them up, read a book (looked at the pictures) about them in the library, and browsed C&Q lightly. That weekend, I was home and thought, "Oh, I could get a hedgehog this weekend and bring it back to school for Monday."
I ended up going to the pet shop and looked at three hogs. They all were housed together. Two males and a female. They had no igloo and their wheel was one of those mesh yellow ones that is just a deathtrap waiting to happen. The girl picked one up with THICK leather gloves. It started clicking like crazy. I knew I was going to be getting a more aggressive hedge because I couldn't be bothered to wait for an available breeder. Finally, she pulled out the smallest and it hissed but eventually unrolled when I held it. Obviously, I was totally in love and had to buy it. I bought a cage with only 2.5 square feet total. Plastic bowls. All of the rookie mistakes you hear about, I made. I did, however, manage to remember the right food and bedding, so it wasn't a total disaster.
When I got the hedgehog home. I realized I had bought the female. It never even entered my mind that she could have been pregnant. Thankfully she wasn't, but she had been nipped at a lot which was evident by some small wounds. From the moment she got to my house she was huffy constantly. She bit me all the time, even at the cleanest of hands. She stayed rolled up and hissy whenever anyone was around. In general, she had the temperament of a neglected adult. It was extremely distressing.
October 2007
A month later I contacted the pet store to ask about her lineage because I was concerned about WHS. They told me they could not release that information. I told them I simply wanted to contact their distributor to see the likelihood that WHS was in her bloodline. I wasn't out to cause trouble, I just wanted to know. They sent me a series of aggressive messages telling me I had no right to know where my animal came from. To this day I have no idea if my lovely Truffles is from a bad bloodline. I also know it is ridiculous that I even tried to find out. Pet stores are like that, I just didn't know.
2007-2008
Now, for a year and a half Truffles made no improvement with her attitude. She have never had a health problem, eats like a pig, maintains a healthy weight, never tried to hibernate. Really, she has caused me no trouble in nearly two years. Except no matter what I did I couldn't get her to lose that bratty behavior. When I switched her to liners, thinking she might be nicer, she actually started to bite more. I tried all kinds of things during this time and I was getting very upset that she was so aggressive every night. The sad thing was that I was in the Netherlands for a short time, and I got to work with wild European hedgehogs while volunteering. I had more success socializing a wild animal over four weeks than I did with my own pet in a year.
You have to know, I have read every thread on this forum and on C&H. I really tried to make up for the rushed way I got into owning a hedgehog. So much could have gone wrong for me during this whole experience, I'm fortunate that it didn't. Looking back on all of this, it's crazy how many wrong/bad turns her health could have taken due to my not knowing how to properly care for her. Can you imagine if she had been pregnant? What if she had some medical problem I didn't even know how to recognize. And the thing is, I paid just as much as I would have from my local breeder. Also, as of today, it has been two weeks since Truffles huffed at me. From September 2007 to February 2009 she had the worst temperament, the kind I only read about for rehomes or rescues. Keep in mind, I was doing everything possible to better her standard of living the entire time.
I know this was lengthy, but I can't stress enough that while it may be tempting to just rush out and buy a hedgehog because they are new and exotic (and freaking adorable); don't do it. Spend some time and do the research, get a home/cage set up ahead of time. Buy an adequate method of heating your hog. Buy from a registered breeder who can walk you through the process and help you if you have questions. While I have had an extreme amount of luck (and three times as much patience), you may not. Each hedgehog is an individual and it is possible to get nice hedgies from pet stores and grumpy ones from breeders.
What you can control is buying from someone who can tell you your hedgehog's lineage, being well informed, and being sure that a hedgehog is the right pet for you for the next 4-8 years, not just this week.
Edit: I realize some people's only option is a pet store. I'm not saying "shame on you." I'm just sharing my experience so that if someone does have the choice of going to a breeder, maybe they will choose that instead of rushing into a pet store hog.