In July of 2002, my sister bought two hamsters, Lucy and Ethel, to accompany her in her lonely Auburn apartment. Every weekend, she would bring her hamsters to Montgomery and I would take care of them while she went to work. Eventually, she got a new job in Auburn, and so I would rarely see Lucy and Ethel. The solution? Get my own pair of hamsters. On October 14, 2002, my sister bought a pair of hamsters for me, who I named Pixie and Dixie after the Hanna-Barbera meeces. On October 16, my parents brought them home to me. Both were very young and timid, but otherwise had similar traits to Lucy and Ethel: like Lucy, Pixie was a biter who didn't like for others to enter her territory, and like Ethel, Dixie just wanted to be everybody's friend. The two hamsters lived happily together, and would even run on their wheel side by side. They even got a Christmas present of their own that year: a brand new cage. In February of 2003, I prepared for the six year anniversary of Boots's death so that I could pay tribute to her, but what I didn't know was that I would lose two other pets in that very month and year. The first loss happened on February 4, 2003. After coming home from school, I visited my hamsters as they ran on their wheel like any normal day. But when I left the room for a few minutes, Pixie and Dixie had a fight to the finish, which was unsurprisingly won by the more vicious of the two hamsters, Pixie. When I looked into the cage and saw what was left of Dixie, I turned pale and stared in disbelief. Then it hit me... there's no way Dixie could still be alive after having her face torn like that; she's gone and she's not coming back. At first, I was mad at Pixie. However, I have long since forgiven her, as it was probably nature, though dwarf hamsters are usually known to be social and friendly. That night, I had a dream that Pixie escaped from her cage (again) and almost got attacked by my cat, Mittens. However, I quickly rushed to her aid and saved her, then put her back in her cage. To me, that dream was trying to tell me that, despite what Pixie did, I still love her and will still take good care of her. On February 8, I bought a new hamster named Dixie, Jr., or DJ for short, who lived in a seperate cage from Pixie. The next day, I burried Dixie in my backyard. On my wall, I have pinned a picture of Dixie with a poem underneath called My Forever Pet. The picture sits there to this day, with a picture of DJ and one of Pixie now tacked onto it.