My niece bought her five-year-old daughter Kayleigh a hamster. One day he escaped from his cage. The family turned the house upside-down and finally found him. Several weeks later, while Kayleigh was at school, he disappeared again. My niece searched frantically but never found the critter.

Hoping to make the loss less painful for Kayleigh, my niece took the cage out of her room. When Kayleigh came home from school thatafternoon, she climbed into her mother's lap. "We have a serious problem," she announced. "Not only is my hamster gone again, but this time he took his cage."