LAWRENCE, Kan. -- It is now legal to have pet hedgehogs in Lawrence after an 11-year-old boy spent three years lobbying against the ban.

Judson King, now a sixth-grader at Corpus Christi Catholic School, wanted a pet hedgehog, but found out the city's animal code prohibits them within city limits.

His mother, Rebecca Weeks, said she was hoping the law would be a good excuse to quash the idea, but Judson kept researching how to change the law. He spent two years researching and presented his case to commissioners last January.

"I pretty much did research every single night for the past three years, and I daydreamed about having them. I had about 5,000 pictures of them," King said.

The commissioners said they found few serious reasons to keep the law on the books and approved the change on Tuesday.

Judson soon received his Christmas gift -- a two-and-a-half-month-old hedgehog named Little Luke.