| The Sooty and Smudge Chronicles (otherwise known as Smooty and Sudge) |
| The Sooty and Smudge Chronicles will be kept updated. As the story grows the earlier chapters will be archived in groups and only the most recent ones will be displayed on the Sooty and Smudge pages. |
| This is the Story of Sooty and Smudge. They are Gerbils. Black Gerbils to be exact. They live in Switzerland with their caregiver, Michelle. Sooty is sooty and Smudge has a smudge, but sometimes they are Smooty and Sudge. Read on in The Sooty and Smudge Chronicles. |
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| Monday 17th February 2003 Well the gerbils were ever so amusing on saturday afternoon. I put the chewed on hammie house in for them to play with, among other things, and Smudge immediately hopped in and started digging for all he was worth. I had the sudden urge to tap on the side of the house and see what he would do. So i tapped. The digging stopped for a moment or two, then duly recommenced. So after a bit, I tapped again. Same thing. Only next time I tapped, it was on the roof of the house. Suddenly there's this little face sticking out the window to see what's going on. He goes back to his digging, I tap again, and his face appears at the window, peering about suspiciously. This continued for some time, only I started tapping in different places each time. I was of course taking my hand out of the cage after I tapped. After a while Smudge got rather frustrated with this phantom tapper, and actually hopped out of the house and looked around. He glared suspiciously at poor little Sooty curled up in the corner, glared at me, glanced under the house, then hopped back in and went back to digging. Now, everytime I tapped he hopped out and looked around. After a while he even went so far as to climb up on top of the house and check there! Poor little Smudgy boy!! I left them to it for a while and Smudge decided to try and force himself in to the hollow log. It's barely big enough for the dwarf hamsters, so naturally he was not getting very far. When he went back to digging in the house, I decided to move it slightly each time instead. He got a little annoyed and hopped on out each time to have a look. I felt sorry for Sooty when Smudge actually pushed him as far away from the house as possible before going back in. Next time I did he pops out again, and Sooty is still way over the other side! Smudge just couldn't figure out what was going on! It was just so hilarious, especially the look on his face when I started laughing! Sunday evening I got them out again for playtime. Smudge has figured out how to haul himself out of the cage without the ladder. He wouldn't come out though until Sooty came out. Sooty was up and down the ramp constantly, while Smudge just wandered about on me, persistently trying to get to the floor. He succeeded a few times only to be made to climb back up. He also discovered the bag of food was down by my foot and did his best to reach the opening. When it comes to that side of things, he's smarter than poor Sooty, but when it comes to 'Who's knocking on the house?'... he doesn't seem to have much hope! In fact, Smudge was so determined to come out and stay out, that he encouraged Sooty out a lot of the time. The only problem being that when I was trying to fill up their food dish and put them back in, as quick as I got Sooty in, Smudge was back out again! No matter what I tried to do he kept climbing out. I took out the ladder, so Sooty would stay in, but even then Smudge kept coming out, and it was a handful to manage him and fill up the food at the same time. I eventually managed, and Smudge was so interested in the food bowl that I managed to get the door closed, at long last!! Now if only they'd stop chewing on the bars right when I'm trying to go to sleep! Bad timing. Why can't they do that kind of thing during the day?? They're supposed to be day time animals after all!! Guess they're like me, they like to stay up late then sleep in in the morning... that's fine... except THEY don't have to get up at 6.15am to go to school!! Oh well... It's hard to stay angry at them. I had a brainwave to stop the chewing... will post about that once I see if it works! |
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