Wedged Hedgehog

Jim Collins advocates finding your own personal hedgehog, but to him I say this:

If somebody thinks they're a hedgehog, presumably you just give 'em a mirror and a few pictures of hedgehogs and tell them to sort it out for themselves. - Douglas Adams

These are not stories of people masquerading as some giant pantomime hedgehog*. These are stories of real, manly hedgehogs, hedgehogs who don't curl up into a ball until the second or even the third sign of danger.

First we have the case of the hedgehog who, in Pooh-like fashion, became a wedged hedgehog in great tightness, his head (right) and tail (left) separated by a garden wall in Bury St. Edmonds, Suffolk, England. Linda Spearman was stopping by her mother's on her way to work when she noticed the south end of a northbound hedgehog sticking out of the wall. When they realized that it was stuck they thought to themselves WWCRD, (What Would Christopher Robin Do?), then decided to do the exact opposite**, giving it more food before calling the RSPCA. Jason Finch of the RSPCA was called in and spent an hour chipping away at the wall before the animal could be pried loose. The hedgehog was freed without injury and the hole in the garden wall has been filled.

Then we have Ashleigh Hunt who, sadly, appears to be well on her way to being a Crazy Cat Lady, but with hedgehogs. Given a prickle*** of three only 18 months ago, she now has 24 pygmy hedgehogs, and is expecting three more any day now.

Pygmy hedgehogs, which at £200 are the poor man's choice after the £700 micro-pigs of celebrities like Paris Hilton, are about 1/4 the size of your typical stuck-in-the-wall hedgehog, only 5 to 8 inches long and weighing around a pound when fully grown. Wild hedgehogs typically live on a diet of slugs and insects, but Ashleigh's animals live on cat food although it must be noted that they are lactose intolerant (which is slightly ironic given the cat food thing and how cats like milk - just sayin').

No word on whether Archie McPhee will be coming out with a Crazy Hedgehog Lady action figure any time soon.

*In fact, a failed Google search implies that there are no stories of people masquerading as a giant pantomime hedgehog.

** Christopher Robin decided they should NOT feed Pooh so that he could become un-wedged, don't you remember? What kind of books do you guys read, anyway?

*** "Prickle" is the collective noun for hedgehogs. You can also call them an array, but that's just not funny.

Sources:
Jim Collins
Brainy Quote
Mail Online and again (photos)
Metro and again
Archie McPhee
Collective Nouns