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Old 10-18-2016, 02:46 PM  
Melissa_2424
Newborn Pup
 
Join Date: Oct 2016
Posts: 4
Question Help! I have so many questions!

Hello!

I bought my two little girls a week ago. They are best friends that do everything together. From what I have seen and read online, Pip shows signs of being the dominant one, whereas Squeak seems to be a lot smaller in size and follows Pip around.

I let them settle down in their new home, only putting my hand in the cage to change their water and give them food. I read that it is important to get them used to your hand being in their cage, so I made a point of letting them smell my hand when they were out of their burrow. They got used to me pretty quickly, so after 4 days I started to give them treats. They don't seem to like many of the treats I try to give them, which makes taming very difficult.

Pip seems to be more tame than Squeak, she has let me pick her up twice and hold her for a minute or two. But lately her has started to nip at my fingers and today she actually bit through my skin. I'm not sure what's changed, but she either tries to bite me or gets uncomfortable around my hand and runs back to her burrow. I'm worried that she will become wild and I wont be able to tame her.

Squeak is a different story. She is practically wild already. Most of the time she isn't bothered by me being around the cage and my hand going near her for a sniff, but she sometimes freezes in place and doesn't even move her nose to sniff my hand or the treat I put in front of her. It takes her about a minute to snap out of it and she then smells my hand and carries on doing what she was doing. I have tried to pick her up twice and failed miserably both times. She hates being picked up and either screams at me or jumps out my hand every time I try. She wont let my hand get near her to pet her and she avoids contact with me whenever possible. I don't know how to tame her because she is so scared of coming into contact with me. I have placed my hand flat in front of her many times, often resulting in a lick and then a hard, painful bite. I figured Squeak is a "look but don't touch" pet, but if it's possible, I'd like to change that.

It seems like the more I try to pick them up the more they resist and become scared of me. Why is this happening?

Another thing I have a question about is their burrow. They have set themselves up very nicely in the deep bedding section of the cage that I set up. But they are very territorial over it. I'm not sure what to do when is comes to cleaning the cage. I have to get into the burrow at some point to clean out old food and the mess they tend to make. How do I go about doing this? I don't want to traumatise them by destroying their burrow, but at the same time I know it needs to be cleaned at some point.

Sorry if this is way too long! I just want my hammies to be happy and let me love them!
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