"My friend the Hamster"

It's touching, this friendship between the white Spitz Mickey and his cute companion, the golden hamster Schnuffi. When the little hamster threatened to die from loneliness, Mickey showed up and took care of the abandoned, shy animal. The brown, woolly little animal with funny, deep black eyes was happily nibbling on a cherry when the door to the room was opened. With one jump, Schnuffi the hamster jumped into an empty flower pot. From there, he looked suspiciously and probably a little curiously at the intruders who had disturbed his delicious meal.

“He’ll come right back out. He just needs to see his Mickey" promised animal inspector Albert Scheer - and indeed: As soon as Schnuffi discovered the white Spitz, he lost his shyness. He climbed out of the pot and rushed towards his friend with joyful jumps. Finally, he got on the head of the slightly surprised Mickey.

"You can see, the two have become friends" laughed Albert Scheer and then, becoming more serious, added: "Our Mickey saved the hamster's life. Without him, Schnuffi would have starved to death."

The hamster's sad story began in early summer. Residents on Goethestraße in Freiburg found the little golden hamster in a shoebox on the sidewalk. They immediately took the little guy, who had been so shamefully abandoned by his owner, to the nearest animal shelter. "He was so starved that I could count his ribs" the animal inspector recalls today. "Schnuffi must have had nothing to eat for weeks." 

In the following days, Albert Scheer personally looked after the hamster. But Schnuffi didn't want to get used to it. “He sat sadly in the corner of his cage all day long. He refused every tasty morsel we brought him. Hamsters are generally very voracious and ravenously stuff everything they can get into themselves."  Albert Scheer was at a loss. "We finally had to force-feed Schnuffi."

But then the little miracle happened. Schnuffi's carer had just put another treat in the cage when the phone rang. Albert Scheer ran to the phone and forgot to close the cage. When he returned, Schnuffi was gone. "I got a big fright. He was sitting snuggled up to our Spitz Mickey, and eating the soaked bread from the dog bowl." Mickey didn't seem to mind. In fact, he even seemed to enjoy finally having a new playmate."

From that moment on, Albert Scheer knew that everything would be okay. He knew that it was the loneliness that had tormented the little golden hamster so much, so much so that he had gone on hunger strike and wanted to die.

Note: A neat, well-behaved German Spitz will get along well with all other pets and maintains his unconditional harmlessness towards them throughout his life. In my opinion, this is mainly because the German Spitz doesn't hunt. The animals sense this instinctively - and so did the hamster Schnuffi, who knew that Mickey wouldn't hurt him. Even wild animals that you meet sporadically on your walk apparently feel that the Spitz poses no danger to them, so they don't run away when they see him, but rather stay calmly where they are. I have experienced this myself several times, and it has also been confirmed to me by other Spitz owners. As is often the case, the key to this is certainly the Spitz's lack of hunting drive