A tale of a curious robo & his panic inducing adventure

[velma]

Yesterday, I was feeding the hamsters & had my hand in Hector's cage, offering him a sunflower seed as I always do & which he nearly always takes. However, yesterday he decided that my hand smelled nicer & nipped my finger (not hard as he's too small for it to hurt) but I'd looked away for a nano second & was taken by surprise so pulled my hand away a bit quickly. Well, turns out that been though it didn't hurt he was attached to finger & before I knew it my hand was out & away from his cage with him still hanging on. And then he fell about 3feet. Onto Cleo's cage, which, thankfully, the roof was closed. I often have it open at the same time. My heart was beating so fast I thought it was going to burst. Of the pair of them, Hector is the one that I really don't want to risk escaping because he's so small & fast I don't know how I'd find him again. And I have cats. He was obviously a bit shocked because for a few seconds he looked around & couldn't scuttle too quickly as he was on the wire roof until I tried to scoop him. Hector doesn't like being touched & he jumped off Cleo's cage onto the ground. Oh my giddy aunt. Luckily I was sat on my knees with my ankles crossed & he ran in the direction of my legs but couldn't go anywhere. I've never pushed my legs into the floor so much! Panicking for something to trap him with I realised that Cleo's pet carrier was nearby. I grabbed it, struggled to open it as it has a really stiff lid to prevent escapes & then put it on it's side in front of my legs. Hector looked as it & decided "nope I ain't going in that" & tried to find a way round. Argh! So with nothing for it, the next time he was facing the direction if the carrier 8 touched him so he ran straight forward & in. I scooped the carrier upright & tried to catch my breath. My hands by this point were shaking just a little....
Apart from a "yeah, I don't want to play in here squeak" & running around trying to find a way out he seems fine. Not a limp or anything. I out him back in his cage & he was super skittish. I'm not surprised after that adventure! I've left him be today but will check on him on bedtime just to make sure but boy, how lucky is he that he didn't hurt himself & how lucky am I that. I caught him?!
That's what you get for having a curious robo

[AshTheHamster]

I've never read a story about a hamster escaping to be so intense..I think I might have to lie down.. But seriously that was very lucky I had two robos before who never loved being touched and it was impossible for me to tame them.. I had to rehome them due to having "too many pets" and I miss them.. But good god.

[Thin Lizzy]

Velma, so glad you caught him, dwarfs are so fast, I watched a video on Tube and it showed a dwarf hammie playing in it's playpen and I thought the video was on fast forward, how wrong was I. lol!

[cypher]

Whew! That sounds like one scary & quite exhausting episode! It'll probably take you longer to recover than Hector does lol!
I've had a couple of similar experiences with mine though fortunately they didn't have far to fall & were so surprised or shocked I had time to scoop them up before I even thought about it, really isn't good for the heart though!
Glad it all ended well though.

[velma]

The day after Hector was super skittish but apart from that he was back to his old self. He has a tiny patch on his heel that looks a bit pinker or balder than it ought so think he might have clipped it but he's had no limp or anything untoward so may be just coincidence. I think you're right Cypher, i think it did take me longer to recover than him!

[HollyHamster]

Hah. I can easily relate as I had a pair of female robos a while back. One managed to escape and found her way under the clothes dryer in the laundry room across the hall. She was just fine.

I even used the cat as a sort of detector when I was looking for her. I let him follow me around the hallway and when he showed intrest in the laundry room and started slowly stalking his way into it, I grabbed him, shoved him out the door and closed it with me inside.

Moments later, after a spectacular diving grab, I caught my robo girl and deposted her in the saftey of her cage.

[velma]

In the grand scheme of great escapes it really was a case of "I dropped him, I caught him, end of story" but oh boy it felt like some epic adventure at the the time

[Pebbles82]

Ha ha - I know the feeling - and Syrians aren't as fast as robos. Stressful isn't it?!! Your mind is going over all the terrible things that can happen to them and the places they can get trapped and they don't care! They are in blissful ignorance and just want to leg it.