Marco and Polo Fall in Love with Chaos

Polo here,
   In the last 5 months the Hobo house has gained a new resident, a pet chinchilla named Loki (after the Norse God of chaos).  Now for those of you who know nothing about chinchillas here is a quick run down.

1. Chinchillas are rodents (part of the same order as rabbits, mice, squirrels etc.)
2. We have determined that he is a Chinchilla lanigera species
3. Chinchillas are native to Chile, living in the Andes
4. They have to stay cool otherwise they will overheat and have a heart attack :(
5. You can't get them wet otherwise their fur can mold
• They get dust baths to keep clean, which Loki loves his dust bath
6. They required a TON of exercise (they can jump up to 6 ft!!!)
7.  Most importantly they are ADORABLE 

 

This is Loki, isn't he cute

    In order to keep our little guy well exercised we let him run around one of the spare rooms at the Hobo house, her loves to run and jump off the walls, chew on anything and everything he can reach, and climb things (even the walls sometimes).  As a result we let him play in the room by himself sometimes by covering the open doorway with a spare sheet of plywood duct taped to the frame.  Last week Loki, the little Houdini that he is, chewed through the duct tape and escaped the room.  Needless to say Ace (another resident of the Hobo house) and I spent a good 5 minutes locating the little rascal and another ten or fifteen trying to convince him to come out from under the couch.  I really wish someone had had a video of it cause let me tell you it was amusing, there was lifting of the couch, Ace crawling behind the couch to try and pick him up, use of a stick to persuade him a certain direction (which of course backfired into him running the other way), running, lunging, and frantic scrambling.  We finally managed to catch him and get him back in the cage.  It was the best work out I have had all year...
   For any of you chinchilla owners out there if you have any advice on how to give them time to run without them escaping please drop a comment.

Thanks for reading and stay nerdy,
   -Polo