Page 3 of A New Family at Puddleduck Farm (Puddleduck Farm #6)

‘As the name suggests, he’s not a native and he has to be kept at a temperature of somewhere between twenty-two and twenty-six degrees, which means of course he needs a heated enclosure and he can’t come outside to play unless it’s a nice warm day. And we haven’t had many of those lately.’

‘No, we haven’t. Oh dear. So had he got too cold?’

‘Yes, and he’d started to go into hibernation. Which can kill these little fellows as they don’t have the fat built up to survive it.’

‘You’ve done your research obviously.’

‘I have. I know a lot more about APHs now than I did two months ago which was when we saw the first one.’

Phoebe nodded, glancing down at Lily, who’d gone to sleep, her little face serene. Phoebe wasn’t surprised, she’d had precious little sleep last night, and Lily loved being close. Still, at least it meant she could have a proper conversation with Seth.

‘So why had the owner got him?’

‘She bought him for her six-year-old daughter. She’d seen pictures of them online, thought how cute they were, and figured he’d be the ideal pet. Cheaper, less trouble to keep and more entertaining than a kitten or puppy. Wrong on every count, of course.’

Phoebe felt her heart sink. People who bought pets without doing any research into their care weren’t a new thing but usually the pets were hamsters or guinea pigs, and it was harder to go wrong with one of these than a hedgehog that wasn’t even native to the UK.

‘Unfortunately, Bumble here isn’t a one-off,’ Seth continued.

‘I’ve had a word with some vet friends and apparently these chaps are becoming a popular pet.

They’re not cheap but they’re easy enough to get hold of.

People advertise them online. As you can see they look incredibly cute, and you know as well as I do that not all breeders are reputable. ’

‘No.’ Phoebe remembered a run-in she’d had with a lop-eared rabbit breeder a couple of years ago.

Belinda Bates, who’d been in it purely for the money, hadn’t cared one bit about who bought her rabbits, and whether they could care for them properly.

In the end, Phoebe had managed to get her shut down.

But this was a whole new kind of challenge.

‘Is it actually legal to keep them, Seth? I thought you needed a licence for exotic pets.’

‘Unfortunately, yes, it’s legal, although the RSPCA don’t recommend it.

To be honest, they make pretty poor pets for kids.

They’re nocturnal, they need specialist care, and they’re prickly, of course.

They’re not necessarily all that sociable either.

So you might find your little hedgehog curls into a tight ball of prickles every time he sees you. ’

Phoebe sighed. ‘Oh, gosh. And you said Bumble here isn’t the first?’

‘No. The first one I saw had a weight problem.’ He raised his bushy eyebrows. ‘They’re prone to obesity because they don’t get enough exercise. In the wild they’d hunt all night and they can cover miles doing that. They’re not going to be doing much hunting stuck in a vivarium.’

‘What happened with that one?’

‘I called a chap I know who’s a specialist and he was able to point me in the right direction on feeding, etc. I got Marcus to pull a fact sheet off the internet for the client about diet and exercise. You can get them exercise wheels – similar to what you’d get for a hamster.’

‘Sounds a good idea.’

‘Yeah. It’s better than nothing.’ His face shadowed. ‘To be honest, it worries me that people want to keep wildlife as pets at all. You wouldn’t keep a fox as a pet, or a badger.’

‘I couldn’t agree more.’

‘I knew I’d be preaching to the converted, and I’m sorry to bother you with it, lass. You’ve got enough on your plate, but I wanted to keep you in the loop too. I’ve been talking to a couple of vets on a forum and there’s a growing trend on keeping these little hedgehogs.’

‘How long’s Bumble going to be here?’

‘That’s the bit I wanted to talk to you about. The owner doesn’t want him back. She’s asked that he be put to sleep. She can’t afford to heat her house apparently, let alone a vivarium.’

Jenna, who’d obviously finished her prescription, came across the room to join them. ‘We told her we’d try and rehome him and she said fine.’

‘But obviously we wanted to ask how you felt,’ Seth finished diplomatically.

They both knew perfectly well she’d have agreed instantly, but it was nice to be asked. Phoebe said out loud, ‘Of course we must try and rehome him, and it’s fine to keep him here until we do.’

Lily chose that moment to wake up and start to grizzle and Phoebe bent to soothe her, knowing the time for chat was over.

‘Thanks, both. Sorry, I’m going to have to sort her out. But I’ll have a think about this, and we can catch up again in a couple of days. He’s fine in here, and if we need the space he can come in the house.’

She met Max on her way out of the surgery. ‘Phoebe. My apologies. I got sidetracked.’ Her junior vet, who was blissfully unaware he was also the practice heartthrob thanks to his Hugh Grant voice and rugged good looks, looked out of breath.

‘I got delayed with Mrs Philips. She’s only just left.’

He’d only just escaped, more like. Mrs Philips was one of Max’s biggest fans. Phoebe suppressed a smile, then having promised to catch up with him and Seth again soon, she headed back to the house with Roxie at her heels.

Snowball, Sam’s cat, who’d just returned from a night’s hunting, twined himself around her legs as she opened the door. He turned his nose up at her offer of cat biscuits for breakfast and curled up in Roxie’s basket by the Aga instead.

‘You don’t mind being up all night, do you?’ Phoebe addressed him as he blinked sleepily. ‘But you’ve got the luxury of sleeping all day.’

Phoebe loved the menagerie she and Sam had acquired between them, not to mention Maggie’s menagerie outside, but God she was tired.

In between the daily routines of seeing to Lily, and the puppies, and getting an update about what was going on at Puddleduck Pets from Natasha, she thought about the plight of poor Bumble.

Having a vivarium taking up precious space in the recovery area was a problem they didn’t need, but in one way it was a good distraction.

The last few weeks had been a blur of exhaustion and her focus had been, understandably, almost entirely on Lily.

But when Seth had been talking, she’d felt her brain engage.

Looking after animals, saving lives, it was what she’d been trained for, what she lived for.

The plight of the pygmy hedgehogs was sad, but it had felt really great to have an animal problem to focus on.

An image of the hedgehog’s tiny little face, amidst a mass of white prickles, popped into her mind.

Its total vulnerability had tugged at her heart.

It was an amazing thing, Phoebe thought with a slight sense of wonderment.

When she was pregnant with Lily, she’d wondered if having a baby would affect her deep love of animals.

Whether she’d somehow feel less love for them when she had her own flesh and blood child to care for.

But it hadn’t been like that. She’d quickly realised that love wasn’t something that needed to be measured out.

Or if it was, it wasn’t finite. You could always find another big bucket of love.