This is a really great toy and my little one loves them, in fact, we all love our zhu zhu pet hamster.

You see, my daughter’s friend had a real hamster. It grew from almost nothing, and during that time she had to learn to care for it, but this was good as it also taught her the responsibilities needed to care and provide for a living being. Weekly cleaning of the cage, daily feeding and watering soon brought home that this was a real animal with needs and requirements. And it’s life dependended on it. Can’t take a week out on holidays, it’s each week and every week.

But one day the inevitable happened, and the hamster was no more. Her friend discovered perhaps too early in her little life the things that perhaps her parents may have preferred her to experience later,  a little older perhaps. I cannnot say that the experience of death, albeit of a loved pet, was a good thing at her tender age.

Zhu Zhu Pets offer the fun and responsibilty of looking after a hamster without that responsibility.

These furry, artificial Pets look real enough, and yes they do run around their habitrail tracks
very convincingly. They offer companionship, interaction, and a similar need for care. Ok, parents here may need to enforce that a bit, but that’s not difficult if you share with them the cuddling of it, and show that it may be a real hamster.

And the most important feature of this for us, is that these little furry loving creatures don’t pose any problems at all to our daughter who has allergic reactions to cat fur. We don’t know if she would show the same skin problems to a real hamster, but this way we don’t need to find out the hard way. And there’s no smell, no real food needed, and if and when she may grow out of it, well, there’s no need for a private ceromony at the bottom of the garden with a spade.

These small, furry, look-a-like hamsters (ok, they do run on batteries) are the latest craze that  has already gone out of control. They are very life like hamsters, each has it’s own personality, and they even make different sounds based on the preference of the child, depending how they adjust the  settings, and no doubt, they’ll all have their own favourites which is good, because that means your neighbours won’t sound the same.

Your young one will learn the responsibilities needed for caring for things, and it’s a great thing to learn. And, no smelly cages, or problems with holidays – either take it with you (no problem when booking in somewhere!) or you can leave it a little extra food knowing that when you return, batteries permitting, it will be alive and well.

This toy really has a purpose, at least it does in our home.