Hedgehogs are prickly but still make precious pets

Henry the hedgehog belongs to 23-year-old Allyson Hazen, who lives near the Ohio State University campus. Henry is kind of finicky, Hazen said, but she’s working with him so that he is more open to being cuddled.

Jackson Anderson plucked Betsy from her bath and swaddled her prickly little body in a giant and fluffy towel.

“See? She isn’t grumpy anymore, ” the 13-year-old said. “Now she’s happy so she wants to cuddle.”

Because, let’s just be honest, most of the time Betsy cops a bit of a ‘tude.

The itsy-bitsy hedgehog huffs – like, she literally blows out puffs of air and shakes her head – to let Jackson know that, no, she really doesn’t want her belly rubbed.

And no, she isn’t hungry so could he kindly get that chunk of banana out of her face.

And no, the cooing sounds he’s making aren’t soothing at all so could he please just be quiet. (At least, that’s what we like to imagine she was thinking.)

But when she is freshly bathed – having been scrubbed and massaged with a toothbrush – and snuggled into a towel, or when she is burrowed into a little pouch that Jackson loops around his neck so that he can carry her wherever he goes, she’s practically an angel.

“My favourite thing about her is probably her emotions and attitude because she’s sort of like me – she’s not that social, ” said Jackson, who’s entering the eighth grade at Shanahan Middle School in the Olentangy district, Ohio, the United States, this fall. “But once she warms up, she doesn’t hold back.”

People have long been obsessed with these spiny mammals that are native to Europe, Asia and Africa, ones that are small enough that when they curl into their signature ball, they can easily fit into the cupped hands of a 13-year-old boy.

But they’ve become even more of a household darling in recent years, thanks to the estimated 2.5-million YouTube videos of them doing cute things: blissfully floating in lazy circles on their backs during baths, their long noses twitching as they gobble mealworms off tiny plates, or running for hours on their plastic exercise wheels (some say the nocturnal creatures can run as much as 14km a night).

Solitary animals by nature, they require special care for bonding, said Gail Smith, who has been raising and selling hedgehogs at her Millermeade Farm’s Critter Connection in northwest Ohio for more than 23 years.

Jackson Anderson, 13, towels off his pet hedgehog, Betsy, after a bath.

“They are like humans with their emotions: If they’re scared, annoyed, frustrated or in pain, they are going to get poky with you, ” Smith said. “If you treat them like a kitty, they won’t like it. You have to be taught how to handle them and care for them so that they come to love you.”

And they have some pretty specific needs.

They can easily get mites and are prone to respiratory or neurological diseases and require special veterinarian care. And they like to be warm, so heat lamps are nice.

They also have super small digestive tracts so they poop – a lot. Everywhere. (Some can be litter trained, though.)

Hedgehogs – which usually weigh less than 907g and are between 12.7cm and 35.5cm long – are considered exotic animals.

Some states don’t allow them as pets but Ohio does. And Smith is one of only a couple of breeders in Ohio certified by the US Department of Agriculture.

Smith’s farm in Montpelier in Williams County is where the Andersons adopted Betsy last summer.

Jackson had watched a hedgehog video online and fell in love: “I thought, ‘Oh, now that’s just adorable’.”

So he asked his mum if he could have one.

“No way, ” Meghan McDonnell Anderson told Jackson and his two brothers. “Why would anyone even want one? They don’t do anything.”

So Jackson, his twin brother, Sumner, and eight-year-old brother Truman read and watched everything they could find about the animals. And then launched an informational campaign to win their mother over.

“On trips in the car, my ears would bleed from the constant stream of hedgehog facts, ” said Anderson, a music teacher in the Olentangy district and an associate professor at Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware.

The pets from a breeder, along with all the necessary accoutrements can run as much as US$500 (RM2,076). Anderson told Jackson that if he raised the money himself, she’d allow an adoption.

So the kids picked strawberries and made jam, and last summer, Jackson sat at the end of the driveway at the family’s Lewis Center home selling jars, night after night.

It took a lot of work but it was worth it because last August Betsy got her forever family.

Allyson Hazen, 23, understands Jackson’s obsession because she says her two-year-old hedgehog Henry “is just the cutest animal ever!” But she also agrees they take special care and work. Henry is “finicky” and still learning how to be a loving pet to his human.

He roams freely around her apartment near Ohio State University (except for that one time he got stuck under the couch) and he is happiest when she lays on her bed and he rests on her chest.

“Then he kind of uncurls out of his ball and begins to explore, ” said Hazen, who graduated from OSU last year and now works in customer service for BarkBox, a subscription service for dog products.

Both the Andersons and Hazen agree, once someone you know gets a hedgehog, the attraction spreads and soon you’ll want one, too.

“Some friends of mine are going to visit because they want to get one, ” Hazen said. “And it’ll be cool because Henry will have a friend.” – Tribune News Service/Columbus Dispatch (Columbus, Ohio)/Holly Zachariah