[mazzypan]

Hi everyone!
I haven’t posted on here for a while, I’ve been so busy with school. I got my first hamster Arthur in April and he’s doing AMAZING. He’s the most lovely, intelligent hamster and I adore him, he’s so so happy.
Last week, on a trip with my mum to pets at home to buy some sand and treats for Arthur, I spotted a long haired white Syrian. I thought he was gorgeous and just out of curiosity I asked a member of staff about him since I’d never seen a long haired hamster at my local shop before. Then, as most (uneducated, plain cruel) pet shop staff are, she straight away deterred me from having any interest in him. Well, attempted. She told me he bit a member of staff once, so no one wants to buy him since he’s SO aggressive. She told us he’d been there way longer than the other hamsters because of this. At this point I knew I couldn’t just leave there wondering what might happen since I highly doubt anyone would buy him if it weren’t me. So I immediately bought the largest cage out of all the horrendous cages in there, bought a large wheel, extra bedding and a bunch of chews/sand bath/hideouts etc.
For the first couple of days he wasn’t flinchy at all or scared of noises or movement. However, I offered him a blueberry and he paused, then kind of went into psycho mode and ran all around, climbed the bars, ran on the wheel then stopped. I noticed he also ran on his wheel different to my other hamster, it just seemed kind of aggressively fast. And he doesn’t seem to eat food other than his main Harry hamster mix. That’s when I started searching stress in hamsters. Then, last night and this morning, he was chewing this large cardboard tube thing I have for him for AGES.
I’m pretty sure these are signs of stress. I feel so sorry for the poor guy, he also seems to never explore parts of his cage and just sticks in the corner next to his wheel or in the tube when he sleeps. He was so stressed in the shop. His whole life so far has just been constant stress and neglect.
I was wondering if anyone has any advice? Im assuming since I’ve given him all I can I’ll just have to wait it out and see how it goes. I’ve researched cage rage but he doesn’t seem really aggressive (though I haven’t tried feeding him since the blueberry incident) , and doesn’t seem to climb the bars too much or pace.
Thank you for reading and for any advice.