New family members

Ever since Andrew's birthday, he has been after Rich and I about getting a pet of his own. Originally he wanted a "different" pet, such as a lizard or gecko, but then he was introduced to 2 bearded dragons and changed his mind. He wouldn't even touch them, let alone consider having one as a pet. His next pet of choice was along the lines of a guinea pig or hamsters. After several trips to the pet stores and much internet research, it was decided he would use his birthday money and buy himself a gerbil. Well then Joe also wanted a gerbil and supposedly they do better in pairs, so we are now the proud home of two Mongolian gerbils, named Bud and Spike. They actually are fun to look at, I could probably get used to them myself. I could really see my getting into buying extended housing for them to run in. We got the cage with all of the tubes for them to climb around in and could really add on if we wanted to. Of course our cat, Obi, really likes to watch them. One can usually find him sitting along side the cage, alert to any movement. He has batted at the cage a few times, but the gerbils are very safely entrenched in their home. Andrew cannot wait until he can get them trained to sit in his hand or on his shoulder and not have them run away. Right now they are pretty timid, we are just putting our hands in and keeping still, letting them get used to our smell. We also put treats in our hands for them to eat. Hopefully soon they will get friendlier. I will try to post pics of our household zoo soon. (3 kids, 2 labradors, 1 cat, 2 gerbils, and 1 husband)