Hello internet my name is Dan Howell and this is the story of my hamster.
For my 12th birthday I decided I wanted a pet.
We'd had some family pets before we had a dog some fish but this was the first pet that was truly mine.
To stay in my room, to look after, a life to be responsible for you know?
And I decided I wanted a hamster.
I know, boring choice, but I just wanted the classic hamster experience I didn't want a fricken leopard gecko.
So my mum takes me to the pet shop and I stare into the box filled with hamsters,
and they all seemed pretty happy, all playing and jumping on top of each other,
but in the corner stood up on its hind legs was a hamster with completely orange fur and jet black eyes.
This hamster wasn't necessarily scared or sick looking it just seemed like it was, thinking, almost
and I stared into its eyes and it seemed to stare back at me and I knew that was my hamster.
So I took it home and what did I name it? Suki.
S-u-k-i
No idea why it just sounded kinda cool and asian I guess. I was twelve there is no explanation.
So I put it in this big plastic tank that I bought, filled with sawdust with a little water bottle and food bowl, and I was so damn excited because
the brand of hamster tank that I bought came with all of these extensions that you could buy, and I got addicted.
Like you know when you're playing the Sims or Pokemon or any RPG and you start to get actual feelings of satisfaction
from this other thing's life being successful, it was like that. I was living vicariously through my hamster's house.
I bought the hamster revolving restaurant extension, I bought the purple hamster nightclub extension, it was like a house out of cribs. It was off the hook.
It was the only thing I cared about and I spent all of my money on it to the extent that my family actually got concerned and had to stage an intervention.
I'd be like:
Grandma, grandma, what chores can I do to get money. I will wash the car, I will clean the dishes, I will scrub the frickin toilets.
And she'd be like:
Daniel, I love that you're being so helpful but I'd prefer if you spent the money on yourself.
You see they were aware of the fact that the hamster probably didn't have the intellectual capacity to appreciate that it now had a see-saw in it's log cabin extension
but I wasn't having any of it.
So i will give you ten pounds, but you have to promise not to spend it on the hamster.
Okay grandma...fuckin' waterpark extension, ohh yeahhh.
I loved my hamster. We used to sit on the bed and play Xbox together as it chewed through my pillow,
I used to make little obstacle courses for it on my bedroom floor, I used to put it in its hamster ball and catch it just before it rolled down the stairs and killed itself.
They really were the best of times.
But then after a few months, something started to change.
Overtime my hamster seemed to get less energetic, it wouldn't want to climb up and ride down its slide, it didn't want to play tug of war for a carrot anymore
and I couldn't understand why, like was it sick?
No, so what was wrong?
I remember one day I got up to give it a little poke on the nose through the grate and it did something she had never done before.
She bit me.
I mean it probably just thought I was trying to feed it something but I chose to apply a lot more meaning to this.
Is it angry? Have I done something wrong? Why would it want to bite me?
I couldn't get these thoughts out of my head as I went to sleep that night. And the next day was the first time it happened.
I just got home from school, ran up the stairs, chucked my bag on the bed, looked over to her tank. The lid wasn't on the tank, sawdust was overflowing onto my desk
and the hamster was nowhere to be seen.
What happened? Did someone do it? Did the dog do it? Did the dog EAT IT?
RED ALERT
My whole family scrambled looking for it, closed all the doors, shut all the windows, pull back all the furniture. When about an hour later I found it behind my bed, shaking in the corner.
How did she get there? Who was responsible for her getting out? I put her back in the tank and tried to work it out when no less than two hours later it happened again.
But this time, I saw.
Suki, began to push all of the sawdust in her tank into one corner. She then climbed on top of the pile of sawdust that she made and pressed her hands against the roof.
She did it herself.
I did not expect this! Hamsters, are not supposed to be that intelligent! But oh no I had gone and bought the fuckin Harry Houdini of hamsters.
So I was stood, right there, and our eyes were locked together in a standoff and I just gave her this look like don't you fucking dare.
POP
Right, thats it. So I got this fat-ass bible and whacked it down on the lid and just in case, an encyclopedia, an atlas of the world, and the entire, illustrated, Chronicles of Naria hardback.
I couldn't lift all of those books at the same time now so I was pretty sure this solved the issue.
But that night, at about two am I woke up to some rustling.
I remember I reached for my goosebumps torch which I had beside by my bedside table just in case of burglars or demons that may try to murder me in the night,
and pointed it over at the tank. And there she was again, sawdust all in a pile, climbed on top, hands on the ceiling
and I just thought surely not, surely there is no way in hell that that tiny hamster can-
POP, slide, crash.
I could not believe that that just happened. I was standing with my mouth open. Did I buy a fucking radioactive hamster?!
Like I know tiny animals are generally really strong in proportion to humans, but I was like this thing could probably break my legs if it ran into me fast enough. What?
Needless to say, my family didn't enjoy going on a hamster scavenger hunt at three am that night.
And the next day I wrapped the entire thing in layer and layer of duct tape, there was no way she was getting out of that and she knew it.
On one hand I felt like I had won this ongoing battle like ha I win you loose, can't escape now.
So then all of a sudden why did I feel so bad?
Suki had stopped trying to escape, but it was as almost if she had stopped trying altogether.
She wasn't eating, she wasn't neatly keeping all of her poop in the poop cave that she had made inside the nightclub extension.
And this is when I finally realized what it had been trying to teach me all along. The value of freedom.
I bought a self aware hamster okay? Most humans aren't even aware of their place in the universe but this hamster was.
My world came crashing down around me. She just wanted to be free and I was the one who imprisoned her.
She is a sentient life form and I am the person responsible for striping her of her freedom?
I didn't expect this! I just wanted a freaking hamster, a lil' cute fluffy thing for me to feel really excited about for a few months
before I inevitably loose interest and feel annoyed by my responsibility to it and it dies a few years later and I learn about death.
But thats not what I got.
There I was thinking hamsters must love being in tanks so I'll get a really big one!
But nope, it was a prison and it doesn't matter if a prison has a revolving restaurant or a nightclub, well actually-
It's still a prison.
I felt morally reprehensible, I had no idea what to do, I mean I felt like I should almost do what it wanted and release it but
I couldn't do that! There are dogs and cars and it's cold and where would it find food?
It is not meant for the wilderness of suburban England so really the tank is the best place for it.
Plus you know it could have been bought by someone who wouldn't have looked after it or it could have just died in the pet shop.
But did the hamster know this? Did it care? Would it rather die a free hamster than just live in comfortable imprisonment for the rest of its life?
I fell into a depression to mimic my hamster's. Now when i looked into its eyes, it was like we were truly seeing each other for the first time.
It knew that I knew and I knew that it knew and finally I realized why I picked that hamster of all the hamsters at the pet shop.
But then that night, the very night that I had this realization, it escaped for good.
I remember it now, I wake up in the morning and in the corner of my eye I see a trail of sawdust across my bedroom floor.
I bolt up, look at the tank, and she had somehow managed to unscrew one of the pipes that connect the rooms together.
This didn't surprise me but I got the whole family up and looking behind beds, looking behind the toilets and sinks, my dad even took out panels in the kitchen
in case it had ran behind the oven. But no matter how hard we looked for hours, we didn't find her and I never saw her again.
At the end of the story was I sad that she escaped? Yes, but at the same time I felt happy, happy that she was finally free.
And I will never know whether she only made it two meters out the door or whether she lived a long and happy life and had a whole bunch of rabbit-hamster babies.
But I found peace in knowing that she got the freedom that she craved, and I thank her.
When I got this hamster I was a boy, but it turned me into a man.
If I didn't have a little furry orange ball to make me question the meaning of freedom and what it is to truly live
I may not have been the person that I am today. For what she told me that I am reminded of every time I see a hamster, a cage, a- purple nightclub?
That merely existing in comfort is not living and if you really want to find happiness you need to find the courage to break out and find your own freedom
and live life on your terms.
And that, is the story of my hamster.
*dramatic explosion noise*
iiiiiit's the sexy end screen hamster *heh* If you enjoyed this video and you'd like to see more of me and my ridiculous life, then you can click here to
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But what about you guys? Any experiences with hamsters or pets in general? Did they change your life profoundly? Or just pee in your hands?
Let me know in the comments, bye!