I stayed at home this weekend as a consolation to Nina. I'm going to be doing a lot of caving and mountaineering this month and she's going to be performing her play at the Los Alamos Little Theater.

We had a bit of an episode with the sugar gliders. Specifically Noid. She chewed away one of the seams in the corner pouch and got a long thread wrapped around her head and then tied up in one of the metal chains that supports the pouch. In trying to free herself, she got all twisted around until the chain and string were pretty tight around her neck.

When I found her she was totally exhausted and frightened and very very attached to the pouch. I ended up having to cut the pouch out around her with scissors and then start clipping the chain links around her neck with a pair of diagonal cutters. This was a very slow process because she was constantly biting me the entire time. My right hand looks like I got it caught in a blender.

It took about an hour before I could remove enough of the mess to find the thread that was actually securing everything to her neck (up to that point I thought one of the metal pieces had pinched her skin or something). After getting the thread cut (not easy with a squirming/biting sugar glider!) she was free and she sulked back to the cage and drank about twice her body weight in water.

The analysis of the problem is that the pouch is not glider-safe. It was made of material that could fray and produce long threads for the gliders to get caught up in. I will never buy anything from that company again. Here is the specific product:

http://www.gliderconnection.com/cornerclubhousepouch.html

If you have sugar gliders, DO NOT BUY THIS PRODUCT!

Instead, let me recommend that you buy a nice fleece pouch from the people that sold me my gliders, SunCoast Sugar Gliders. I have never had a problem with any of their products and their service is superb.