Quote:
Originally Posted by Ria P
Hi and welcome! I'm a bit puzzled. Why did you get a hamster when you're nervous around animals?
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It's not that unusual for a person to assume they'll be fine but when they actually encounter a new animal something just goes NOPE in the old lizard-brain. Happened to me in a butterfly house of all places, I am absolutely not afraid of butterflies logically but when they're flying at my face it's like DEFCON 1 anxiety levels. Can't be helped!
Well, it can be helped eventually. With patience and continued exposure! Which is what I think is best for you Idra! You're already doing the right things. Holding her in a tube is safer for her if you're moving her so keep doing that. Feeding her treats from your fingers is perfect, so keep doing that. If and when you feel up to it you can move on to letting her pick up treats from the palm of your flat hand and encouraging her to put her paws on you but you absolutely do not have to do this if you don't want to. In fact, if you're still nervous enough you think you might freak out and jerk your hand away, my advise is not to do it at all. Stick to what you're comfortable with and just get used to eachother slowly. You're both in a very new situation so just respect eachothers pace and you'll be fine. The sometimes-sad truth is that she doesn't need your company, she will be a perfectly happy little hamster if you just give her enough space, enough things to do to keep her brain active and supply delicious things from time to time.
(The one caveat here is that you do need to be able to do a quick health-check and this can he harder to do if you can't stroke down their backs or pick them up and flip them over. Most problems you can probably manage to spot anyway but it is better to be able to give them a proper once-over)
As far as you hearing that hamster bites hurt. Well. Technically yes they do but stubbing your toe is worse. Whacking your elbow off a door is worse. Accidentally biting the inside of your mouth is about the same. Hammy bites do bleed a lot but it's a nice clean chomp and shouldn't scar. And in my experience they will only
really bite when they are genuinely afraid and we're already doing all we can to avoid that! I know it's hard to put a stop to irrational anxieties but focus on the rational and let the irrational part be eroded away with time.
The wheel thing: I doubt you shaking seeds out would have scared her off completely/ forever but I would try not to do that in future. I have heard that silent spinners can be a bit stiff? So it could just be an issue with the wheel itself but I'll let someone who's actually owned one chime in on that. If it's definitely working smoothly and it's big enough there's not much else you can do to make her use it. She will if she wants.
Finally; hello and welcome! I very much like the name Mouse and I hope you get some pics up so we can meet her properly
