I adopted Camilla, my prairie dog, when she was two months old in the Spring of 1999. She was only as big as the palm of my hand. Camilla lived in a two-story ferret townhouse in my living room and no matter where I was in the house she was always watching me. When I whistled to Camilla, she would bark back to me. Camilla loved to cuddle and be held. While being cuddled, she would wait until she thought I was asleep and then she would make a break for the dog food – a treat she was not allowed to eat. I would find her sitting in the middle of the dog food bowl stuffing her face with the curious dogs watching her. Camilla loved to chase the dogs all over the house. She just wanted to inspect her paws and she was not afraid of anything or anyone. Camilla lived a healthy 8.5 years (which is a good life time for a prairie dog) until a tooth infection took her last week. I miss her very much and can’t take my eyes from the bare spot where her cage used to be. I wish the government would recall the ban on the sale of prairie dogs as pets. It was put in place during the 2003 monkey pox scare. The threat of monkey pox has clearly passed (and was a result of the sale of african animals, not prairie dogs) and prairie dogs are being butchered and poisoned for sport in the US when they could be adopted into loving homes not only in the US but in Japan. All one has to do to see what great pets they make is watch youtube videos of prairie dog pets.
Thank you for your show and for the opportunity to post a message about Camilla. I look forward to seeing her and Lucy, my dog, in heaven.

ADB in WA