My first chinchilla was named chin. I got into the idea of owning a chinchilla when I was about 16 years old. I had a dream one night that I was walking around my house with a chinchilla on my shoulder like a parrot. I can’t even say for sure where I had first seen a chinchilla. I was and still am a big animal lover and love exotics. To this day I think the perfect date is checking out some capybaras at the zoo or petting some goats and getting homemade icecream at Youngs Jersey Dairy .

At 16 or so I was just learning about concepts like symbolism and I took my dream as a sign that I MUST own a chinchilla. I knew well…nothing about chinchillas. I didn’t even know where to find one.. The local pet store in good old Springfield Ohio was not much help either, most of the pet profesionals (aka kids that worked there) didn't even know what a chinchilla was. Finally, (like maybe a month later) I made the voyage to Columbus with my then boyfriend after learning that a pet store there had chinchillas.

The pet store was not in tip top shape. It smelled like way too many species of animals crowded into too small of a space. The owner, a heafty man that I was surprised could fit through the narrow passages between the snakes and white rats, led us to the back of the shop where he had a small standard male chinchilla in a small aquarium on the bottom shelf... no where near ideal conditions for a chinchilla. I had considered going with a camelion that I had passed on my way to the back of the shop, but once I laid my eyes on Chin I knew I was sold. He was $125 and I took my hard earned waitress money and went for it. When I first got Chin I took him home and put him in a guinea pig cage, but within a few weeks he was already outgrowing his home. After doing a bit of research and reading a handy but very basic chinchilla book I learned that a ferret cage was far more suitable and saved up the cash to get him a multi level house.

Chin was super friendly and one of those rare chins who really liked being held and pet--he was a total attention whore. At the time I also was not aware that chinchillas live to be around 20 years old, and before I knew it I was off to college and unable to take Chin with me to my dorm room. I thought about trying to sneak him in, but in the end my family was cool and decided to take care of him while I was in the dorms.  I would come home every other weekend and hang out with my chin and my family. He was a bit lonely without me there, but still a very happy well taken care of chinchilla.

After dorm life came to it’s end chin moved back in with me to my college apartment. My first apartment was great! 6 roommates and a large room all to myself. Chin loved the 7 person house. He was like our animal mascot and he still had a nice quite room to chill in. However in college you typically end up doing a decent amount of moving around. My next move was not ideal for Chin. He suddenly had to share his home with 2 too curious cat brothers. It was super stressful trying to keep the cats away from the chin. He had his own room, but the bored kitty cats would make it their life mission to sneak in and harass him. They would go so far as to hiding under the bed in the room being extra quiet, until I left for class and then get on top of his cage and paw at him. My roommate at the time and I would have it out over the cats staying out of my room. Eventually this ended badly and I moved out, with one of the main factors being our pet’s incompatibility....