This is a bleak week in our family. Our hamster Rustles died on Monday afternoon. The cat killed him. It seems the cat managed to open the cage somehow. The first I knew of it was when I heard Robyn scream that Sammy had run through the kitchen with something in his mouth that looked like Rustles. There was a brief frantic search. We found Sammy outside, and Rustles was dead. It seems he died instantly, as the cat had immediately lost interest.

He was Robyn's hamster. She got him for Christmas. But we all enjoyed him. I used to take him out when the kids were asleep and let him nose around the bedroom. Robyn loved him so much. She used to play with him every day, talk to him, show him bits of the big wide world, make things for him out of egg boxes. We all feel rather raw inside. I had hardly any sleep the first night. There were too many images in my head. Burying Rustles. Cleaning out the cage for the last time. Throwing out his toys. Drops of blood on the kitchen floor that we noticed later.

I always meant to, but never got around to taking any photos of Rustles. Robyn made a red heart, wrote 'I love Rustles' on it, and put in a picture frame.

Robyn said that in life Rustles was always smiling, but after he was dead he wasn't smiling anymore.

I feel so many things - for Robyn having to deal with the loss, for the hamster's life cut so short. When a pet dies after a long happy life it is very sad but there isn't the same of feeling of injustice and - cheatedness. I hate the fact that this will always be in Robyn's childhood. It can't be undone or rubbed away.

I feel that as the adult I should have been able to prevent it somehow. We had a padlock for the cage but only put it on when small children were visiting. It never occurred to me that Sammy could claw the door open. Also, because the cat had knocked the cage over a few times, sending Rustles and all his stuff flying all over the place, a couple of days ago I had tied the cage to the handle on the side of the kids' large dress-up crate to stop it from being knocked over. In hindsight, it may have been that that allowed Sammy to claw the cage open. If it hadn't been anchored to the crate maybe it would have fallen over instead of the door opening. I didn't even know he knew about the door. Maybe he didn't. Maybe it was all just a huge ghastly coincidence.