Well, as stated above the character DoodleBug was actually based on my real hamster of the same name. She lived out her natural life with me and from 2020-2023 and passed away from natural causes. Though her time with me was short, she left an immense impact.

During Covid, like most people, I found myself feeling increasingly isolated and depressed. That was when I decided to talk to my wonderful partner Corey about getting a pet. They gave me the green light and then, without much hesitation, or crucially, research, I brought home a little baby DoodleBug. At the time we were living in an apartment with our friends, so I knew the pet that we chose would need to be small. Of course, being a hamster, she didn't need that much space, right? ...WRONG!!! After doing a bit more research I was horrified to find out that my previous assumptions about her space requirements were woefully insufficient. Thus, began my journey to build the ultimate hamster condo. What began
as 300 square inches of floor space ballooned into 800 square inches and then to 1,100 Inches. After spending incalculable amounts of time and more importantly, money, I realized owning a hamster was not nearly straightforward as I had thought. In fact, not only did DoodleBug take vastly more energy to care for than I thought, but I soon found myself encountering a much more distressing problem.

You see, even after all of the attention and care I had lavished upon DoodleBug, it had become apparent... She F@#king hated me! Due to a mix of bad breeding practices and simple personality, a select few hamsters simply never grow to bond with their caretakers. After all I had worked so hard to achieve, DoodleBug wasn't grateful, even a little bit. One time after taking her out of her house to give her some roaming time she
actually ran up Corey's body and bit them on the neck so hard she drew blood, and we started calling her the Hampire after that. Of course, being a prey animal, we realized that this was likely a fear based response and did our best to directly interact with her less often for her comfort.

Even though it was tough at times, I learned an invaluable lesson: DoodleBug taught me about true selfless compassion. I could have easily discarded her when I realized her true personality, or even before that when I realized her care requirements were so much more than what I had expected, but I didn't. I realized the day I brought her home that she was my responsibility. I wasn't just her owner I was her guardian. She
unwittingly had brought so much light into my life and left an
irrevocable impact on me. Through learning to care for her, my mind was distracted from loneliness and I found a passion. On my darkest days, I decided to stick around because she needed me. And eventually, even her cantankerous nature seemed cute.