Back in July our SPCA hamster Bernard made the great escape from his cage in our front office. This wasn’t the first time he had escaped but unlike other times we could not find him in his usual spots.

It seemed all hope was lost and as grim as it was to assume we highly suspected a cat would make him a quick snack or he had managed to get out into the wild yonder of the field behind our facility.

Today, our office administrator emerged from declaring that there was a mouse in her office. Karri, being not to fond of mice or rodents in general called in for backup and I rushed to the rescue only to pull a slightly slimmer but bright eyed Bernard from under her computer desk.

Needless to say we had to pull out his file and cross out ‘run away/MIA’ and changed his status.

We also had to put together a new cage as we had cleaned out his previously occupied one a few weeks ago and even threw out some of his things.

He doesn’t seem to be thrilled about ‘being home again’. He has spent the last hour staring longingly at the outside world from his new home, and drinking water.

We can’t figure out where he’s been for the past month and some bit, or how he managed to escape the claws and jaws of cats.

Akeyla, one of our animal care staff believes the mice in our building took him in and showed him the ropes of survival. This theory she says, is leading to an award winning screenplay once she gets to Vancouver this winter to start her screenwriting degree there in January.

Regardless of how, or by who’s grace he survived and we are so happy to have him back. What I would pay to have Bernard be able to talk even for 20 minutes so he could tell us what he experienced…