Feisty the Chinchilla died Friday 31 November 2017. I had known him for almost 4 of his 6 years. Every day that I was home I played with him. When I was not home it was part of my check-in routine with Fabian to ask about the chinchillas’ behavior and whatever they might be doing on that day. I had invested myself and my time socializing with him, guiding his behavior, and learning how he communicated to me. Chinchillas live for 12-15 years and they are cautious to warm up to humans, so a relationship with these animals will not mature socially with humans except with years of interaction. I was getting to that point in the relationship with him. I cried for hours when he died and for much of the next day. It happened that I had travel planned for Sunday so as Fabian buried him I joined the funeral remotely and went forward. My heart aches at his absence and doing all the counterfactual thinking about how thing would be different had I made different choices. Rodents are fragile animals and chinchillas are exceptionally vulnerable and in need of an environment which is safe for them. I miss Feisty dearly and feel so broken. I feel at fault. Some others have told me not to blame myself and I told them that I do not but I do anyway. Logically it is partly my fault and I can blame a series of other factors as well.
Feisty and Pip chilling
Parts of this blog post are not happy. I wish for people to be nice to animals and for people and animals to have all peace and happiness in the world. Feisty died unexpectedly at a young age in an unfortunate way.
I have had lots of Syrian hamsters. They live for about two years. Many people regard pet rodents as lower life forms, less feeling and with smaller souls than pets such as cats or dogs. Consequently, many people who would give great care to a care or dog might provide a hamster a small home with less enrichment and attention and routine care. Also many people might never assist a hamster in distress. For example, I have had hamsters which required medical care and needed a vet visit. There are people who would take an injured or ill cat or dog to a vet but not take time or pay money to do the same for a hamster. I can understand that since hamsters have a shorter lifespan, they also have less time to bond with a human, but they do bond. Also with hamsters the shorter lifespan can suit some people’s lifestyles. With a cat or dog, one makes a 15 year commitment to the care of the animal. If the human’s lifestyle changes, perhaps because of a move, or change of housing situation, or perhaps because of the split of a human couple, then the pet’s life is changed more than the pet wants and maybe even the animal goes to a new home. A hamster is a two year commitment, and while it is sad when they die, in contrast to a pet with a longer life a person can care for a hamster from start to end more easily and be confident that they provided the hamster the best possible life experience.
Feisty and Pip constantly aware of where the other is
Chinchillas exhibit many of the behaviors of a hamster but are more emotionally reserved and shy. They live as long as a cat or dog but they are not as bold to interact like cats or dogs. Whereas human can expect to have mutual respect and social bonding with cats, dogs, and hamsters possibly on day 1, mostly likely within 3-5 days, and almost certainly within a month, chinchillas require months or years to give their trust. Even when they give some trust, they hold back even more, and only slowly over time will the chinchilla decide to trust slightly more in new ways and explore new ways of interacting with humans. This is not to say that new pet chinchillas are disagreeable pets in the beginning, but only to say that humans who build relationships with them will recognize that over time the chinchilla’s behavior changes.
Chinchillas have a desire to investigate which they moderate with a startle reflex. Typical interactions between a human and chinchilla will be a balance between the the chinchilla curiously having an interaction with the human while their stress grows. When they become too stressed, they seek to break off the interaction and hop away. So for example, a chinchilla’s curiosity might lead them to hop to a human and look at them. They feel gratified to look at the human, but become more stressed if the human draws closer, or makes a sound, or makes too much eye contact, or tries to pet them, or communicates with them in other ways, or if too much time passes the human does not respond in a way that the chinchilla finds positive. Something unusual about a new chinchilla is that it might desire to investigate a human by jumping on to the human. If it does this, its wish is probably that the human remain still, not react, be quiet, and not touch the chinchilla. This is a different experience from a cat or dog, which might come to a human to be petted and get attention, or a hamster, which will tend to learn to enjoy human interaction quickly. Over time, chinchillas will be more comfortable with eye contact, and human voices, and having a human bring their hand close for the chinchilla to inspect, and being lightly petted with one finger, or given food treats. It can be hard to give chinchillas all the space they need, but most people who keep chinchillas will say that an hour of daily interaction with the chinchilla outside their pen and in an open space is sufficient for socializing. At that level of attention, a chinchilla can take years just to be comfortable with being lighted petted most of the time, and will never be as comfortable around humans as many other pets.
This is not to say that chinchillas do not want human interaction; they do, a lot. Even new chinchillas will continually and repeatedly approach humans. The unusual thing is that they want the interaction on their terms, and mostly want the human either non-reactive or slowly and predictably reactive to their frequent and repeated greetings. Chinchillas will initiate greetings to a human then flee at any response in thousands of encounters over time. A chinchilla who can explore freely in a large room may check out all inanimate surroundings repeatedly, play with other chinchillas in the space, and if there is a human, approach the human every 1-3 minutes to interact. Somehow they get spooked then hop away, only to cautiously return a few minutes later.
Feisty has hopped onto Fabian while he rests
I met Feisty along with his bonded chinchilla life partner Pip when I started dating Fabian in 2014. He was cautious then, and every few months Fabian and I would talk about how Feisty and Pip have developed a new standard for social interaction. Perhaps they would approach and stay for 10 seconds instead of 5, or they would allow themselves to be petted for 2 seconds instead of a fraction of a second, or they would allow us to talk with them in a low voice, or combinations of these things over time. Every behavior is interesting to a chinchilla and almost every behavior makes them startled. They continually run away to hide. It takes them a few seconds to feel brave again, at which time they return until they feel shy again.
Lately Feisty had developed to do all sorts of things which distinguished him. It seems like a small thing and is difficult to describe, but chinchillas choose postures from which to present themselves. Pip would stand in one way to present himself in front of certain people and Feisty choose his own preferred distance away and angle of approach as compared to Pip. Feisty liked to communicate by making scratches for a second in front of his standing body as he made human eye contact. He liked when the human responded back by scratching the ground in front of them, as this would make him repeat the scratch. He liked making eye contact and scratching the ground in front of him with a human doing the same. In Fabian’s bedroom he found a way of scaling certain shelves and room fixtures so that he could make eye contact with standing humans and look down on us sitting. Pip never learned to do this and Feisty did it routinely after learning the how a year ago. Chinchillas have a chirp that they make when they are happy. Pip made his chirp with a certain sound and Feisty had his own different chirp. Pip tended to beginning chirping most times when he played. Feisty chirped only some of the times when he played. Feisty tended to want to play less than Pip, and would find a place to settle down and nod off. Pip would play for as long as he was out (even 3-4 hours) although both of them, after returning to their pen, would immediately fall to sleep. Feisty would sometimes find any corner and nod off standing. Obviously this was not comfortable for him as in his own space he sleeps in a different way. We understand that he prefers to sleep at home and had no way of communicating that he was ready to return, so when he was tired outside his pen he would plan to make due and prepare himself for sleep. Only recently Feisty started seeking to touch the nose of his face to mine if I put my face at his level. This is an intimate behavior as in general, chinchillas do not initiate touching their fur on human skin and they do not want their face potentially soiled. Chinchillas tend to want their fur to be as crisp and clean as possible so are averse to any kind of touch that presses on their fur or potentially could get it oily such as with human skin.
I was playing with the chinchillas late Friday night. It is a tight apartment in Bushwick and through a series of barriers, the chinchillas can hop around most of the bedroom but not some places, and they are not allowed under the bed. There is no danger for them in the bedroom but it is annoying if they get under the bed then decide to nap, because in that case they decide for themselves when they come out and they should not be in the room unsupervised. The bed was not pushed all the way to the wall because of applying the fitted sheet to the mattress. When playing, I saw Feisty sneak along the wall to below the mattress, which is something he has never done before, and which I would not have thought possible. Chinchillas like other rodents have a way of fitting into small spaces which seem like they could not possibly enter.
Feisty was then loose. After some time I heard him making noises under the bed, but could not reach him, and was dependent on him coming out. I put Pip back into his own pen. I waited for Feisty, but it seemed to me that he was napping in the dark under the bed. It was late. I let the chinchillas out at perhaps 9pm. It was 11pm when I was ready to put him back but he was missing. Fabian was still at work to return at midnight.
This next part is sad. I do recommend that everyone avoid reading any more.
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In this story Feisty will die when a dog kills him. There are two dogs at Fabian’s house. When the chinchillas are out, they are in the bedroom with the door closed. The dogs are never allowed inside and stay in a different room. The dogs had never been aggressive to the chinchillas, but also, they were never together. When Fabian returned home he came into the bedroom. At this time Feisty snuck outside the bedroom without him being aware. I was half asleep and we talked about catching the chinchilla. I said that he was under the bed missing. Fabian began to survey surroundings. He went back outside the bedroom a few minutes later and Feisty was there, immediately outside the bedroom doorway and dead. It was his first time going outside the bedroom and the first time in his 5+ years at Fabian’s home that he had encountered the dogs living there. Within seconds of his exit from the bedroom he was dead. Since his body seemed intact, maybe he experienced a bite and just died, as he did not appear or feel injured.
I am heartbroken and sick. When I saw his dead body he appeared to be sleeping, but on touching him, I found him dead. I went to the bathroom to vomit and afterward was inconsolable. However bad I felt Feisty was dead and Pip lost his partner. In a brief exchange, I insisted on allowing Pip, the other chinchilla, examine the body, and I briefly put Feisty into the chinchilla pen. Pip approached it, looked and sniffed over it, stood up and looked at me, then hopped away. I had the idea that Pip could have an instinctual understanding of death and have a realization that his partner would not return. Fabian later told me that this ritual might only have frightened him, because now Pip understands that we have an association with his dead partner. I do not know animal psychology so I do not know what is right to do. Should humans show pets the body of their deceased friends, or is that a human ritual which does not benefit an animal? What is natural to do?
Chinchillas have a reputation for being difficult pets because of their complex social needs. They are social animals and need the companionship of another chinchilla in their pen. Ideally, 2 to 4 or more chinchillas can live together and socially bond to each other. Bonded chinchillas are life partners with each other and seek the regular companionship of each other. Chinchillas are often aggressive to chinchillas outside their social group and with which they are not bonded. There is a process for encouraging chinchillas to bond with each other, but to some extent, from a human perspective chinchillas just seem to be choosy for unknown reasons about which other chinchillas they will accept and which ones they will forever reject. Pip and Feisty were bonded to each other after Fabian brought Pip to a chinchilla adoption center. Pip had the opportunity to meet various chinchillas there. After passing some hours peacefully with Feisty in which they stood unmoving next to each other for some hours, it seemed that they had an initial liking to each other, and Feisty came home to move into Pip’s pen. They became fast friends, then their relationship developed further with new intimate behaviors like Pip becoming protective of Feisty, their mutual grooming, and their negotiating to claim spaces to be alone and to be together.
I do not know what sort of emotions to imagine that Pip might have. He just lost his bonded partner. Do chinchillas have the emotional capacity for heartbreak? Alternatively, when herds of chinchillas hop together in the cliffsides of Chile and Peru, has nature prepared them to expect that predators will collect one of their number with some regularity, and that they should expect some relationships to pass while they need to form new ones? Along with whatever else I felt my primary concern was that if we kept a pet then we should provide for its needs. Having one pet killed by a dog is a major breach of the safety I imagined in the household. I want more security for the household pets, and I want a replacement partner for Pip as soon as possible. Chinchillas seek to communicate continually and he needs to be talking with another chinchilla.
I wish that there was no need for dogs and chinchillas to cross paths in the same household. I do not like looking at the chinchillas and fearing for their safety. I do not like looking at the dogs and seeing a creature which has a natural instinct to kill the other family pets, and which have done so. Fabian has a greater affinity for the chinchillas. His housemate has a greater affinity for the dogs. We all meet in the shared space of the apartment, so 3 humans, 2 dogs, and 2 chinchillas all have needs to negotiate in a very expensive small space.
Obviously I also project all kinds of human thought processes onto chinchillas and hamsters and whatever other animals I like. If anyone likes their pet or animal then I think they should have whatever kind of relationship with the animal satisfies them. I only wish that whatever people choose to do, they could do it in a gentle and personal way so that they minimize the extent to which their activities infringe on the peace of others.
Even though a chinchilla is dead and another one is lonely, and even though it is the death that has made me cry, this entire experience highlights the pressures on the human relationships involved here. I like playing with the chinchillas. Fabian wants good relationships with me, his housemate, his chinchillas, and the puppies. Fabian cares about the puppies too but they mostly belong to his housemate who makes the last call on how they puppies can behave and be treated. Their apartment is already small for two people and with me around that means more pressure on their lifestyle. Despite me being at their place about half the time, I still live there in packed bags and without permanently storing things, and am never there without Fabian. That makes me sort of an outsider, and maybe kind of a deadbeat for not paying rent, but then also I am definitely not supposed to be there dividing the space further as a third moved-in resident. Maybe he holds me responsible for the chinchilla dying. I felt like the barriers for safety were enough but I was risking a little animal’s life and obviously I was too careless and now Feisty has died. Fabian’s room mate is quiet and rarely likes to have conversations other than small talk. It seems a little strange to me that I am in this home and intimate space with another person for years, and we have shared intense experiences, and we rarely talk about things. Maybe this is not strange but just how life is because there is not enough time for everyone to discuss everything. He and I did not talk about the chinchilla death, even a mention in passing, and maybe we never will.
My wish for resolving all of this is for Pip to get a new chinchilla friend, for us to plan new security for having the chinchillas out, and for everyone to align to meet the communication needs of the person who finds the most challenge in talking about any of this. I would like to apologize and can do so by listing everything that I think went wrong and every way that I would change in the future, but apologies require an exchange with communication. One chinchilla to whom I would like to apologize is dead and even though the other is there and seeming a little sad I cannot communicate easily with him. There are no humans who want an apology from me but if anyone wanted to hear from me then I would say why I am so sorry. It is an unfortunate situation. Poor Feisty, poor Pip.