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Old 10-28-2018, 03:14 PM  
Murmel
Newborn Pup
 
Join Date: Apr 2018
Location: Germany
Posts: 16
Unhappy What should I do?

Hey here is Sasha and Murmel,

so I don't know how much you will be able to help me right now, but for the future I will know for sure how to react so I am going to make this threat anyway:
Today I had a friend over. Around 6 pm my hamster Murmel came out of his house, as he always does as of late since it has gotten colder. Guess he's an early bird. We talked a little about hamster care and animal care in general, and suddenly we heard this sneezing noise from the first platform. And there Murmel was, holding his paws together just beneath his nose and sneezing two or three times.
My cage is in an area that isn't right in the spotlight, so when he came running over to the side of the cage I took my flashlight and shortly pointed it at his nose.
I could see a small amount of wetness on the lower part of his nose and immediately called the emergency number from an animal clinic nearby.
I let the vet on the other side of the line know what I had witnessed, and asked what I should do, if I should take him immediately and come over or if I should handle the situation differently.
It was sneezing and some glistering in the flashlight's light that I witnessed, he is running around eating and drinking. Sometimes he gets sleepy all of a sudden. I thought I saw him trembling a little just a while ago (not sure tho) so I put a warm blanket over his cage. I turned on the heater as well, but I am worried I'll let it get too warm, since my blood circulation is very bad, which makes it hard for me to determine how warm a room actually is. Plus, my room is naturally not cold at all, therefore I am working with leaning the window open a little and closing it again. Back to the main question though.
The vet listened to what I was talking about and he said, I should keep him warm and wait till morning for now, so I could take him to a vet that is closer to where I live, if that vet has time for him. If the symptoms worsened I should go to the clinic immediately though.

The clinic is further away, it would be a lot of stress and it is very cold outside right now. He has not been sneezing for a while now, is occasionally walking out of his house and around the cage. He is cleaning himself, burrowing in his sand bath and sand pit, is chewing on his toys and has been drinking and eating. I am worried though. I have a vet right around the corner that I could try calling tomorrow morning, which would probably be a lot less stressful for Murmel, plus he is running around normally, does not have diarrhoea or watering eyes, only his nose looked damper than normal on the bottom.
I am using straw pellets as a small layer of substrate underneath quite the layer of Carefresh paperbased bedding. The pellets are pretty good quality and the bedding is fairly new as well, so I doubt that it is a reaction to too much dust, dirty cage (I spot clean, too) or an allergy, even more so because I have been using the same brands for a few months now and he has been loving them.
What I am basically asking is: Should I still take him to the clinic now? Or should I wait until tomorrow to call the vet that is closer?

Thank you for reading this confused post!
With kind regards,
Sasha
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