goodbye Spike x

Spike checking out his new house - april 2011

A year ago we welcomed Spike the Hedgehog to live in our garden,

i thought this would be a great idea as i had wanted to get a hedgehog to eat up

all our slugs and snails, we have a walled garden and there are so many hiding places

for the slimy pests! {apparently slugs are only a tiny part of their diet}

So i got in touch with a local wildlife sanctuary and when the hedgehogs were out of hibernation,

i got a home visit to check my garden was suitable and that i had a home for the hedgehog,

we had to do a little more work to hedgehog proof the garden.

We were very excited when the day came for our hedgehog to arrive :)

It was lovely to have such close contact with a native wild animal

but i was expecting the rescue hedgehog to have some sort of disability,

something that would mean being released back into the wild would not be possible.

It turned out that Spike was a fit and healthy hog.

Ok i thought, he will be safe in our garden, he will be fed and watered,

we may even be lucky enough to see him occasionally.

This arrangement went well for a few months,

Spike would be seen occasionally,

one summer night he even came in the house without anyone knowing

and got locked in the utility overnight!

Then in September we realised we'd not seen Spike for sometime

we were still leaving out food which he wasn't eating

and it unfortunately attracted a rat *skin crawls*,

so we stopped leaving out the food and got rid of the rat problem.

After consulting with the Wildlife Sanctuary

we decided Spike was either hibernating or had died :(

I felt awful and worried Spike may have gotten stuck behind a shed or something

or bitten by the rat and died :'(

BUT

Spike wasn't dead!

He came back out of hibernation and i was so happy :D

BUT

unfortunately our new dog Max is an avid hunter

and every single night without fail he would hunt poor old Spike down :(

So we came to the decision that the territory was just not big enough for the both of them.

Luckily for us {and Spike} my Uncle and Aunt own some woodland

just the perfect place - away from roads and pesky dogs - to release a hedgehog.

a last "cuddle" with Spike

one of the reasons Spike needed a new enviroment!

beautiful Spike

Spike's new home.

I hope he will be happy in his new home,

I hope he will meet a lady hog and make beautiful baby Spikes.