carefresh
04-04-2005, 06:30 PM
I just read this from a webpage that told you about their hamsters, and their inventions that they have created for them ~
Last time I promised to say something about my effort to design a hamster harness. This began back in 1994 when we first got Paul. What appeared at first to be an easy project quickly began to look impossible. Hamsters, it seems, are shaped like sausages. You simply cannot restrain a sausage using only a collar; a sausage has no neck.
But a hamster has something sausages do not have: legs. Most of my harness designs have involved straps looping around the front legs. Unfortunately, in their normal walking gait, hamsters move their front legs from the all-the-way-forward position to the all-the-way-back position. Anything that hampers leg movement makes them nearly unable to walk. They never complain, though; not once the harness is on.
Getting the harness on is a different matter. To a hamster, having elastic bands placed around him is cause for a fight to the death. But once those bands are in place, he will trot away unconcernedly, despite the fact that his legs are sticking straight out sideways, making him look like a furry four-legged crab.
So: loops around the front legs are not practical. My most recent design involves a band around the "neck", which can easily slide forward, but not backward, because of the front legs. There is another band around the middle, which can easily slide backward, but not forward, again because of the front legs. Hooking these two bands together produces a harness that will not come off (at least in theory) and involves no loops around the legs.
As with earlier designs, putting on the harness is a fight-to-the-death struggle, followed by a firmly harnessed rodent happily ambling away. Until he reaches the end of the leash.
the poor hamster ! having to wear rubber bands (elastic bands, same thing) around his body, and what the heck, who cares if the hamster can't walk properly ????!
Last time I promised to say something about my effort to design a hamster harness. This began back in 1994 when we first got Paul. What appeared at first to be an easy project quickly began to look impossible. Hamsters, it seems, are shaped like sausages. You simply cannot restrain a sausage using only a collar; a sausage has no neck.
But a hamster has something sausages do not have: legs. Most of my harness designs have involved straps looping around the front legs. Unfortunately, in their normal walking gait, hamsters move their front legs from the all-the-way-forward position to the all-the-way-back position. Anything that hampers leg movement makes them nearly unable to walk. They never complain, though; not once the harness is on.
Getting the harness on is a different matter. To a hamster, having elastic bands placed around him is cause for a fight to the death. But once those bands are in place, he will trot away unconcernedly, despite the fact that his legs are sticking straight out sideways, making him look like a furry four-legged crab.
So: loops around the front legs are not practical. My most recent design involves a band around the "neck", which can easily slide forward, but not backward, because of the front legs. There is another band around the middle, which can easily slide backward, but not forward, again because of the front legs. Hooking these two bands together produces a harness that will not come off (at least in theory) and involves no loops around the legs.
As with earlier designs, putting on the harness is a fight-to-the-death struggle, followed by a firmly harnessed rodent happily ambling away. Until he reaches the end of the leash.
the poor hamster ! having to wear rubber bands (elastic bands, same thing) around his body, and what the heck, who cares if the hamster can't walk properly ????!