My love of sugar gliders is all Jennifer Hester's fault (Cliff's sister). I had heard of sugar gliders before and seen pictures, but one night when we were having dinner with Cliff's family, Jennifer started talking about seeing "sugar bears" at the mall. No doubt, it was a Pocket Pals kiosk where the merchants were trying to sell a few of their remaining joeys. But she mentioned it at dinner and then the conversation went on. Meanwhile, in Cliff's head, he began pondering what these little animals were.
The next day, he asked me what they were called, and I knew what he was doing: Googling all he could find about sugar gliders. Truthfully, so was I. And that night when I asked him about the research, he announced that he really wanted to get one, and of course, so did I.
We looked around on the internet to see what is recommended when acquiring a sugar glider. We found a couple of breeders in state, but the animal rescuer in me thought maybe we should give a home to gliders that were being rehomed. We knew we wanted two as our research said they work better with buddies. And after an internet search, we found a male and female glider who would become our new pets. Ironically, I never looked on Craigslist for a sugar glider, even though that's my typical go-to site for animals that need new homes. I probably could have found a sugar glider in our area had I looked at Craigslist, but apparently, we were meant to travel to get gliders about two hours away from us.
So, on a lovely Saturday in July 2011 we made our journey. There we found our beautiful Mika and her mate Jack.
Mika, chilling in her bag on the trip home
I couldn't wait to see my first glimpse of a sugar glider up close. Being nocturnal creatures, I wasn't sure if I would even get to see them while the sun was shining. But after a little bit of prodding, up popped a little head with big, old doe eyes. She blinked at me, and she had the prettiest little white face. She also immediately nipped me because she didn't know who this big strange human was who had just awoken her from her beauty rest. I didn't care. After looking at those doe eyes and that sweet little white face, I was hooked. I couldn't wait to get her and Jack home.
So, we trekked back to Raleigh with all the necessary supplies we would need as new sugar glider owners. When we got home, the dogs were very curious about what we had in the yellow bag. I kept the bag out of reach, but close enough so they could smell it. Immediately, this sharp sound erupted from the bag. It was Mika, crabbing at the dogs to get away from her.
We immediately set up the cage, and then we had to wait for the sleepy heads to wake up and let us look at them. Once they awoke from their day-slumber, we could tell Jack is the adventurer. Mika was more of a methodical glider, walking slowly but with purpose. When it was time to feed them, I felt the best way for us, the new humans, to bond with them would be to hand feed them their worms. Jack gobbled his worms with gusto, but Mika took her time.
Mika, exploring my recliner
She was hanging out on the side of the cage, and I started looking at her belly because I was curious about the female pouches. I gently touched her belly, and the pouch opened a bit. What in the world! I could see something in her pouch! At that moment, I was sure Mika was a mommy, nursing her babies in her pouch.
A trip to the vet confirmed that she was quite big with two joeys inside her pouch. While we were thrilled to hear our little family was growing, we weren't really prepared for it. So, the research began again. We got Jack fixed, and we started seeing what we needed to do to ensure the joeys were going to be healthy. We gave Mika some extra worms and crickets to make sure she had enough protein. But really, the babies were so far along, it was just a matter of waiting for them to come out of pouch.
During this wait time, we learned more about Mika's personality. She was more reserved than her mate, and sometimes she would bite, a bit harder than I liked. But knowing she had her babies, I believed that she was in protection mode and still wasn't very trusting of her new humans, although it seemed like we were gaining her trust.
Here's a little story I'll never forget about Mika. One night we put Mika and Jack in a large carrier so that we could bring them upstairs with us. Jack had just had his neuter, so we were trying to keep him calm. That meant no jumping around the curtains and tree we had in their special room. But we wanted them to be near us as we went upstairs, so we put them in a large crate I had. We had underestimated just how small these guys are. We knew they couldn't get through the bars of the crate, but since this particular crate was collapsible, there was an opening near the top of the crate where the door snaps to the walls. We had both dozed off a little while we were watching TV. The next thing I know Cliff is saying "We have a situation!" I looked up, and Mika was crawling up his leg. With joeys in pouch, that little scamp had jumped from the carrier we had on the table across from the bed and landed on Cliff. It was quite a surprise, but it was also a clue that she was starting to trust us. She had come to Cliff rather than scampering off somewhere else and hiding.
Mika, at the base of the tree in her room
Very soon, we began to see an odd sight. Legs, arms and tails began protruding from Mika's belly. The babies were getting too big for her pouch, and we knew soon they would come out to play. It was quite funny to see Mika struggle with these big babies. She would walk a few steps, then bend over and begin shoving body parts back inside her pouch, then walk a few steps and repeat. The experience of watching a mother glider go through all these steps for a joey is very intriguing. I feel very fortunate that we got to witness all these different stages.
It wasn't long after the body parts began emerging that the babies began to venture out too. The first time I saw the babies out of pouch, I had taken the gliders to the vet for a check up. When they were trying to get one of the adults out of their bag, there was a baby clinging to the blanket. I squealed in delight, and I believe it shocked the vet tech. But I didn't care. It was the first time I got to see the fragile little babies. They weren't coming out in the cage yet because their eyes were still closed, but we got to get glimpses of them in their bag. I even got to hold them while they still had their eyes closed. And once we held them, we knew we had a white face and a stripe face, just like mom and pop. I had already picked out names long before we even got Mika and Jack. They would be Gizmo (aka, Gizzy-magoo) and Gadget (aka, Gadgy). We dubbed the white face Gizzy and the stripe face Gadget. And just like mom and pop, Gadget was the more adventurous of the two.
Gadget, before her eyes are even open
It was quite the adventure getting these babies used to us. But since they had come out of the pouch into our home, it didn't take long for them to begin trusting us. And soon, they would jump to us from the cage door the moment we opened the cage. I was so inspired by these little rascals, that I wrote a short story about my shy glider Gizzy and how her sister Gadget helped her come out of her shell. Gadget was so special. I hate to play favorites, but there's no doubt that Gadget became mine and Cliff's favorite glider. She always wanted to be with us, and she would jump from me to Cliff or from Cliff to me without a care in the world. The sweetest moments for me were when I would be upstairs for glider playtime sitting in the easy chair. Gadget often would hang out nearby and come over to lick my ears, face, hands, feet...whatever exposed body part struck her fancy. She was very affectionate, and she definitely had Cliff and me wrapped around her tiny little paw.
Gadget was always the littlest one
If ever there would be a therapy glider, Gadget could have been that glider. She was very gentle and very friendly. When my mom came up to help my little sister move in for college, Gadget accompanied me for the move in. She didn't do much heavy lifting, of course. But she was my little mascot, and my mom was just floored by how adorable she was. Hey, I get my animal loving honest...my mom is almost as bad as me. Recently, mom was asking me for pictures of the gliders to show to her co-workers. I smiled a little smugly knowing that my Gadget had made such a good impression on her.
Gadget, in her normal spot...on my arm
But when there is so much joy in your life, there must also be pain...sometimes devastating pain. And when tragedy happens to the ones you love, there are so many mixed emotions: sadness, guilt, regret, remorse. And sometimes the pain of my heart is so amplified that I can barely get my breath.
So, now I must share the tragedy, the part that I feel such shame, for which I'm so sorry and over which I cannot forgive myself.
Enter Dinka, the worst mistake I have ever made. Why I thought I needed to bring a new ferret into the home, I'll never know. I still had Bebe, but I knew her days were very limited. So we got a new kit, I suppose hoping that would help with the pain we would feel when Bebe finally left us. Unknowingly, we ended her life early by getting Dinka. He gave her some common kit disease, and her poor weakened immune system could not handle it. So, one of our pets passed due to our decision to bring Dinka home.
I won't spend too much time on Dinka, because this is about my beautiful sweet gliders. But a quick overview is that Dinka was not like any other ferret I've had. I really believe he was untrainable. He seemed to like us, but he was constantly biting us and scratching us. I never knew how dangerous he really was.
One night, we were gathering the gliders in their playroom to take them downstairs for dinner time. We almost had them all, but we were still missing Mika. I was in my bedroom for some reason, and suddenly I heard this horrible sound of a glider screaming and Cliff shouting "Dinka, no!" I ran to the glider room, and Dinka had Mika in his mouth with his teeth clamped hard. Cliff was holding Dinka, and I put my hand around Mika to try to loosen her from his grip. We eventually got them apart, and we took Mika to the vet the next day to make sure there was no damage we couldn't see. The vet gave her a clean bill of health, but that incident should have been our clue to get rid of Dinka. Instead, we ignored this very major warning sign, and the penalty for ignoring it is the sorrow I now feel.
Friday night (12/14/12), Cliff and I were having a really good night. In spite of the tragic events in Connecticut, we were enjoying our evening. The work week was over, and we were looking forward to our weekend. I had gotten some cookies for Cliff, and I really wanted to get them baking for him. He asked if we were taking the gliders up. I hesitated for a second thinking that we could wait and take them up Saturday night. But I relented and said he could take them up and let them wake up and we would go up in a little while to play with them. There had been many nights where we would take them up, and they wouldn't come out of their bag. So, we had started taking them up and leaving them in their room for a bit to wake up and start playing, which is more fun for us when we join them.
There are a lot of "should ofs" I've been going through. Hindsight is 20/20 for a reason, but it doesn't bring back the ones you love. After about 30 minutes, Cliff headed upstairs to be with the gliders while I finished up something on my computer. He immediately came back down carrying Dinka. He said "I found him in the glider room, and I only see two gliders." It didn't register for me. I think my initial thought was "Dinka is such a rascal." We don't let Dinka around the gliders because of the interaction he had with Mika. But he was hiding in the glider room when we took them up, and we didn't know he was in there.
Cliff went back up to the glider room, and a few moments later he came back with Jack on his shoulder and Mika in his hand. Mika was gone. In that 30 minutes, Dinka had killed my mommy glider. Cliff placed her little body in my hands, and I broke down sobbing.
I followed him back up the stairs, pleading that the other three were ok. There was Jack and Gizzy. Where was Gadget? Then Cliff found her, not far from where he had found Mika. In an instant my ray of sunshine was gone. I screamed her name and sobbed even louder. I think I had said on my way up the stairs "Please let Gadget be ok." I didn't want any of my gliders to be hurt, but I don't deny that she was indeed my favorite.
And so the guilt, sadness, remorse and regret have begun and remain with me. I'm so sad this happened to my sweet babies. And I'm so sad for Gizzy and Jack that they lost half their family. But I feel so fortunate that I had Mika and Gadget in my life, if only for a fleeting moment. I will never forget them, and I will love them forever.
Dinka is responsible for the death of three of my pets, so he now has a new home. In one weekend we lost three of our pets. That's a fourth of our little animal family. And while I remind myself that there are other people suffering far worse over the loss of their children than I am over the loss of my pets, it doesn't help with my personal pain. So, here are a few more photos to celebrate the life of my Mika and my Gadget.
Gadget (top) and Gizzy (bottom) a couple weeks out of pouch
Proud mommy Mika making sure her babies are safe
Papa Jack (left) with his spitting image Gadget (right)
I love this picture of Gadget (left). Looks like she got a rude awakening.
The family: Gizzy (back) kissing Gadget, Mika behind Jack
