Domestication

[evieshka]

Hedgehogs are relatively new on the domestication timeline. They're not social animals and aren't accustomed to being with humans in the manner of dogs and cats. Prey for Most Things, a hedgehog behaves like Most Things are going to eat it, including but not limited to shadows, t-shirts, voices from the television, plastic balls, scrambled eggs, toothbrushes, blueberries, mobile phones, feet, stuffed animals, carbonation escaping a bottle of soda, a well-fed service dog (mis-typed as 'god' yet again), water, towels, baby food, spoons, mint leaves, and raisins.

But really, can you blame them about the raisins? (You shouldn't feed your hedgehog raisins.)

(You really shouldn't feed anyone raisins.)

Bonding with a typical dog (not 'god'), assuming 'typical' here means 'unabused and untraumatized', can take a handful of weeks.

Bonding with a hedgehog requires daily attention and handling - and the last thing the hedgehog wants is to be handled. Its primary defense is to curl itself in a ball defended by an array of tiny, needle-sharp spines, and from this position it will huff and pop - a coughing sound, coupled with a bounce, which sounds much cuter than it is. All to frighten away the egg, the toothbrush, the shadow, the voices, and you. You still have to reach into its habitat, scoop it up from the sides, and hold it with its quills digging into your bare hands.

It will stay in a ball. It will puff like a steam engine. It will bite. The trick is to remain there, unmoving, until it calms down. Your hope is that it will learn you're safe. The more time you spend in proximity, talking to it, the more it recognizes the sound of your voice.

Eventually, it trusts you.

This process can take a year. This can be expedited if your hedgehog is food-motivated and will accept an offering of mealworms each time you hold it. If your hedgehog can't be bribed, your recourse is patience.

Once it learns to recognize you, it will still huff and ball when you first wake it. Sometimes it does this for no discernable reason, regardless of whether you are present, but often while held cupped in your palms.

Its spines will break skin. At the end of its patience, which is limited anyway, it will bite; if you pull away, it will bite harder.

It will not play.

Petting a hedgehog is dicey.

You will realize, four or five months in to hedgehog ownership, that you are in possession of a pet that enjoys running on a wheel and shitting everywhere. Your interactions begin with a bath to clean its feet of feces, and inevitably will result in a hedgehog sleeping somewhere on your person. You'll feel discouraged, because your pet does not play with you. You never pet it.

You won't understand how people on Instagram convinced their hedgehogs to wear hats and sit on dollhouse furniture. The director's cut of hedgehog ownership convinced you that it would be a great pet after you saw so many of them on their backs, legs splayed, with human fingers rubbing their stomachs.

Your involvement with your hedgehog is stillness and shit management.

But then one day you realize it runs to you when it's scared. It crawls up on your shoulder and hides in the crook of your neck. After a moment, it begins to chirp in your ear. It burrows into your shirt, where its spines poke your bare skin while it sleeps.

You realize it's started purring and smacking its lips when it's with you. When it's awake, it trusts your hands as a safe and unprecarious perch. It sniffs the air while balancing on your palm. It keeps one foot on your finger like a lifeline while exploring a desk, or your lap, or the carpet. It hides under the shadow of your curved hand. Maybe, if you're very lucky, it lets you pet its forehead, or flip it on its back for stomach massages, just like on Instagram. It's rarer than Instagram lets on, which makes it more wonderful when it happens.

It will still have days when your presence is tolerated only on its terms. Or not tolerated with any sort of grace at all.

Consistency is key.

(My hedgehog has learned, somehow, to be comforting when I'm sad. He licks my cheek and nuzzles under my jaw when I cry. Despite my suspicion that he's licking salt from tear tracks, I can't explain the nuzzling.

I don't know how he figured that out. He's dumb as a brick.

Neither my husband nor my dog nuzzle me when I'm sad, though. Intelligence is relative. Some bricks might surprise you.)

It's not a perfect relationship.

It's an understandable one; I see myself.

I'm content to be solitary; I don't go out of my way to make friends. It's not my nature (or nurture.) I'm not feral, but I'm undomesticated. I bonded with people who forced their friendship on me in quiet, patient hours. They endured while I huffed, popped, bit, or sat frozen in silence.

Conversations were daily impositions. Sometimes, they are still impositions. They are always daily.

I'm still not domesticated. I'm never going to be a good pet, where 'good pet' is on some level an analogy for 'good person', and 'good person' does not adequately account for my decency or humaneness, but rather my ability to behave as other friends behave.

I don't expose the hedgehog to crowds. It's a good policy all around.