Amber, the Pet Smart associate, confirmed that our little gray mouse was a male. I returned both of them as I said I would but made sure they were going to be ok. She said that the male would be returned to the place he was purchased from since they only sell female rodents. And the female will be placed in quarantine for 14 days because they'll know by then whether she's pregnant or not. Since we were suspicious that any of the other female mice might be pregnant as well since the gray one was in the cage with them prior to us bringing him home, we looked at the dwarf hamsters.
I first wanted the Robo Dwarf Hamster and Amber said she wouldn't even stick her hand in their cage. Yikes! So she recommended the Chinese Dwarf Hamster. We brought home the only one that had white on the sides with the brown stripe down the center. She reminds me of a chipmunk. All the others were solid brown - or tan (I can't decide). She has a cute little stubby tail and enjoys the wheel as much as the mice did. But she has even more fun characteristics; she likes to burrow under her aspen wood chips and run around the perimeter of the cage. So cute! And she's fast too. I took 4 pictures of her this morning. She disappeared from the frame in the first two pictures before they would take. The third one was really blurry cause I had to snap so fast. The one decent picture I added below is blurry but you can get a pretty good idea about her appearance.
I didn't name her until this morning. She went to sleep really early (much earlier than the mice did) and is still sleeping. She started playing late last night so I can only assume she played most of the night. So I named her Day-Z (pronounced Daisy) since she will most likely get most of her ZZZZZZ's during the DAY.
Once she becomes more comfortable with us and will stop flitting around her cage so much I'll get a good video of her playing. I should have known -although I had my sispicions - that we had a male mouse. The cage was just too stinky. You shouldn't have that overwhelming odor with only two female mice. I was looking at the Dwarf Gerbils first and should have stuck to that. I don't smell anything from Day-Z yet.
One more thing before I go today. Check your Pet Smart return policy. They did right by us. Although Amber tried to get me to keep the male mouse, she didn't force me to when I stated that I was afraid he'd be aggressive or maybe even escape because the female was missing. I had my receipt and they're supposed to take the rodents back and refund your money - no questions asked - within 14 days of purchase with that receipt. I had no intentions of taking them back of course until I discovered one was a male.
