Not tamed or territorial??

[Jazzymin]

First time hamster parent here! I made an account just to ask this because I'm so confused on whether my dwarf is cage territorial or just not tamed yet. I've had her for a little over a week.

It seemed to be going great at first. For background, she's in a 40 gallon tank with lots of chews, toys, two hideouts and a wheel. After bringing her home, I left her alone for 2-3 days to settle and put toilet paper with my scent on it. Her personality seemed to come out pretty quickly after that—she let me hand her treats and soon she was able to sit in my palm while eating and I could pet her with my thumb no problem. A few times she nibbled but realized my hand wasnt a treat and this was fine. After a week, I was even able to lift her out of the cage and let her crawl in my hands and arms for a good 5 minutes before I put her back. I did this one time.

Then, literally the next day after I handled her she began chasing my hands around any time they were in the tank and biting them. She doesn't seem scared at all and will run up to the side and scratch at the walls when I walk up. I thought initially it was because she was associating me with getting food, but every time I put my hands in the cage she goes to bite and makes me bleed. Every. Time. I won't even be near her and she'll run over. To avoid a bite I've been showing the flat side of my hand and sometimes she'll sniff and go away but eventually she'll come back. She even bit my knuckle when I was doing this. She still let's me pet her when she's in the middle of eating a treat, but as soon as she's done she'll try biting my hands again. Since the beginning I've washed my hands before interacting with her. I tried bathtub bonding to see if she did this outside of the tank and yup. She even tried biting my toe.

I'm starting to fear holding her and I really don't want that. We were doing so well, what happened ?! How do I fix this??

[cypher]

A week is still early days so she may get over it, it's a fairly common problem with some Russian hams but most do grow out of it, some can remain territorial & don't really like hands in the cage so it's best in that case to just handle them during out of cage time.
Bathtub taming really isn't suitable for dwarf species as it can really be overwhelming for them & is better suited to syrians if used at all.
I would set up an out of cage play area for her, this could be a safe escape proof playpen or a large storage bin with substrate in the bottom, give her some toys like tubes or cardboard boxes to explore & maybe put a wheel in there to & just let her explore for a while & gradually begin to reintroduce your hand, go slow at her pace & keep it short to begin with & she should be fine.

[AnimalLover357]

Interesting. My hamster went through that exact phase when I first got him. Everything was going well, when a few days in I put my hand in to refill his water and he would stand on his hind legs, stretch up to try and bite my hand, and followed me round the cage. Although we had a sufficient size cage, he only seemed to be happy when out of it and running around. We concluded that he would be better off in a larger cage, with a more natural setup, and so far he has done. I believe he may have been cage territorial, but after a little while he settled down in his new home and he is currently a very happy hamster. I'm sorry I can't be of more use, I wish you luck with your little bundle of fluff!

[Ria P]

Also, you could let her walk into a mug or jug to get her out of her cage without using your hands until she gets used to your hands and scent.