Dad’s panicked texts after he loses daughter’s hamster go viral

A father’s panic after he lost his daughter’s pet hamster has officially earned him the title of the Internet’s cutest dad.

Daniel Veerman was so distraught when his daughter’s hamster, Chester, escaped while he was cleaning the critter’s cage that he had a complete meltdown in a text message exchange she shared on Twitter.

“My dad took over my hamster once I went back to college and ended up getting really attached and today he escaped and this goes to prove how truly pure my father is,” Stephanie Veerman tweeted on Sunday.

“Oh my God I’m so sorry honey I’m so sorry I’m looking everywhere,” Veerman texted his daughter. “I’m never going to forgive myself if he doesn’t come back.

“If I can’t find him today I’m not going to work tomorrow so I can keep looking,” the attorney added.

Though his daughter repeatedly assured her father that it was OK and that it wasn’t his fault, Veerman insisted on making it his priority to find his daughter’s beloved hamster.

In another text, the father sent his daughter a picture of his clever strategy to locate Chester. He had poured flour on the floor hoping that if Chester returned to his cage for food, the flour would track his footsteps.

“So I know he’s still alive,” he said.

The dad also continued to apologize profusely.

“I’m so sorry, Steph,” he texted. “This is my biggest screwup ever. I will make it right.”

“Dad it’s OK!” she reassured him, which did not subside his guilt.

“No it’s not … I put him in his ball a whole bunch of times, I should have double-checked,” he said. “God is good, I will trust him.”

“I know he likes peanut butter,” the worrying father remembered. “That’s a start.”

Eventually, Chester turned up, which was a relief to both father and daughter.

“OMG … DID YOU GET HIM??” Stephanie texted her dad in reply to a picture of him holding the hamster.

“Yes in his cage,” he said. “Are you effing kidding me.”

“This was the most stressful day in my life since I took the bar exam,” he added. “Night.”

The humorous text exchange has since gone viral with 89,000 retweets and more than 361,000 likes.

“Your dad’s comment about losing the hamster being as stressful as taking the bar… man, I get where he was at. You have an amazing dad, and a super cute hamster!” one Twitter user commented.

“This is the most adorable thread I have ever read on this website. Thank you,” another person tweeted.

Stephanie later followed up in the thread and shared images of her with her dear Chester, as well as a headshot of her now-viral dad.

“Told him he had a lot of people on Twitter who loved him so he did his hair and posed for this pic,” she tweeted. “I love him so much.”