Woke up to a hamster next to me!

[Skeever]

Same thing happened to me. A door I thought was closed, then several hours later I dreamed of something crawling across my hand with claws. My brain, still in dreamland, even suggested 'hamster?" but that was too ridiculous. Its clerarly a benign million year old prehistoric spider......

Besides , if I believed it was a hamster, I would have to wake up.

Then twenty minutes later, it happened again....which is odd because when I'm awake? I don't feel Pook claws on my hand, I feel mostly fuzz and four tiny cold feet.....but my mind insisted it could only be a hammy, and it was ...........

Unharmed by his adventures it seems. He somehow got down from the five foot cabinet his cage is on top of...no doubt explored extensively, but then found a bed at the other end of the room , and persistently tried till he found a way to get on the top of that, where the human monster was. First time I felt the spider , I do remember brushing it away. Yet he came back again, and started walking on and around my hand enough to wake me. I got up, prolly gave him a groggy tummy kiss and put him in his cage.....

I'd like to think he wanted to find the big Human thing....though he quite cleverly figured it was the only way back to his bachelor pad....either way, makes me feel he's a bit of a heart ham

I didn't overthink it. The electricity worked , nothing had crashed and shattered on the floor that I could see, and Pook was his normal, hyper self.....we can hypochondriasize ourselves to death with hams, so I try to avoid it unless i have reason to think there is a problem .....

I still have no clue how he got from 'there' to 'here' as in on the bed......helps keep alive a sense of wonder in the world.....

Serendipity....your hamster find you to get back to their food bowl. Our hammies are consumed with love for us!!!! Comsumed, I tell you!!!! If it helps, I teach my hammies how to open cage latches so it loses its allure for them when I' m not around. They are all quite good and nosing and pushing and lifting latches to escape into their cages......and if they want, to get out....so I make sure the lock is only the first line of defense....use things like books as weights should a latch open still making it unliftable......but they seem so uninterested in escape most times......you think the fact that they don't get in trouble when the human sees them and even helps them work the latches makes it seem less of a forbidden fruit? Hehe

[Nat]

Sometimes we think the worst of escapees, as in what they're chewed or pooped on etc but most of the time I'm sure it's just a little adventure for them. I thought I had one before, I left Dolly's cage open after I fed her as I went downstairs for 10 minutes or so, came back up to see the door open and was looking everywhere for her, under the bed, in the wardrobes. Only to eventually see her little head pop out from her bed! She never moved the whole time! I feel silly now haha

[Pebbles82]

Charlie doesn't want to escape! Does that mean there is something wrong with him?!!

[greysome]

Hi everyone!

Hazel Nut--or as I've been calling her, The Nutter though since she's already Hazel Nut here, I figure The Nutter (yes, complete with caps) will just be her title after her highness threw a two-day long snit at my ending her escapade. She actually kept turning her back to me whenever she knew I was in front of the cage--even if she was in her wheel! At first, I was worried that something was wrong since she didn't come to me immediately like she normally does, but when she grabbed a treat from my hand, THEN turned her back to me eat it, I realized the only thing wrong was her attitude

Admittedly, she might have just been angry that I continued to halt her attempts to explore her vast kingdom as she has been attempting to make breaks to do so since her lil adventure. I actually moved her back into her bin cage while I complete her new cage (it should be done and ready to move in by the end of the week) because she kept climbing up the wires and after she realized there was no escaping through that way either (the door now being locked several times over), started chewing on the wires. And because she couldn't make it easy (and also because the bottom of the cage goes up 8" before she reaches wire), she only ever chewed when she got to the very top of the cage, which was about 28" up. Once I moved her back into the bin, she quit her little fit and has returned to the spunkily sweet hammie she was before.

Other than the snit, she's been behaving normally. I kept a closer eye on her poo because I noticed a rather large (considering the size of their mouth) piece of rubber had been chewed and the chewed piece missing but she was pooing/eating/behaving normally and then I found the missing piece last night (though why she deposited it in my bed I will pretend not to know, just as I pretend it means nothing that she may have rubbed her scent all over my bed and left a somewhat strong odor on my sheets....while I was sleeping in it)

Thank you all for your words! It did take me a day or so to calm down enough to a normal level (I have problems with anxiety) though The Nutter's only upset was that her exploring was brought short.

[cypher]

lol! That just made me laugh
She really is quite a character, glad she's OK if a little disgruntled & that you've recovered from ham induced hyper anxiety too!

[greysome]

Celendine, alanjamesblair, SquishyHelium- Oh god, I'm still nervous about possible escape attempts. It's not so bad now with her back in her bin cage but in putting together her new cage, I've decided to use multiple locks (currently, the clasp I'm using is on the smaller side) while I figure out a larger lock idea that will work on wire. I would think it was sweet of The Nutter to want to be near me--but as I mentioned in the above post, my sheets/bed smelled suspiciously like her cage did/does after she 'explores' it after a clean.

Cypher-- I most certainly was the one who needed time to recover! She was back to her normal self, minus being very happy towards me, as soon as the lights went off!

2LittlePuds-- Is it odd that this story made me feel better? And now I'm also very glad that The Nutter is, like your hamster, a syrian as I shudder to think about trying to find/catch an escaped and adventure-bound dwarf.

de4life-- I think one day, we will discover that hamsters actually do have depth perception but love to fling themselves off things anyway as part of their combined "HAH! I'll show you!" attitude and their love of making us worry over them....or maybe they think in our happiness that they're okay, they'll be receiving some (extra) treats?

Serendipity7000- Oh no, 22 inches, not feet! The lock to the door is really just a chain of clasps (like the clasp you would find in a necklace, but larger) so she couldn't have unlocked the door herself. When I was locking/securing the door, I was careless that night and didn't secure the clasps (I link several together so it's a "chain" from the door to the cage wall) tightly--one chain was pulled tight but the second chain was loose enough that with a bit of effort on the door, a gap big enough for her to wedge through would appear between it and the cage. As for Charlie's lack of wanderlust-- it's not that he doesn't want to escape, it's that he's just extremely good at not getting caught and then getting back into his cage in time with it locked to not worry the treat giver!

Skeever-- You are a calmer person than me! Haha, now I am super grateful I woke up to a mischievous but adorable hammie and not a creepy prehistoric spider though I applaud you for choosing to sleep through a spider but not a hammie Haha, I love that he kept coming back to you until you finally did what he wanted and as for how he got from his cage to the bed--obviously, you have a super secret flying ninja ham!

Nat- Haha, little do you know....but Dolly actually had a lil adventure after all and only just got back in the cage when she thought you were gonna check it. But shh!!--don't let her know I told you

[Oshaamacco]

Hahah! You're so cute how nervous you are! No need to worry! I've owned hamsters and they've all escaped but they re-appear to let mommy know that they're doing ok. We're all human and almost all of us have probably left a loose end in the cage where the little clever hamster has escaped.

If it happens again, place some food in the middle of the room where you think she/he might be. Sometimes they'll pouch up some findings, so make sure you remove them from their cage.

She probably went to sleep because she was on an adventure for who knows how long. Leaving the cage and roaming around was like going to Disney World for us :P. She's pooped out and what do you do after a long day's fun-time? SLEEP OF COURSE!

Keep an eye out for her, but I don't think you should worry much! Unless you have some kind of rat poison around the house (Oh no! ) Then I think your baby will be all right!

[Skeever]

When Pook was new, I woke up, twice to be exact, to find a hamster in bed with me. The first time I figured I was dreaming, and silenced the part of my brain that said: Gee, that feels like a little hamster is crawling on my hand....and I fell back asleep after brushing whatever IT was away.....

Ten minutes later, again, little paws on my hand. Yup, there was Pook. He had gotten out of the cage (door was improperly closed ) down off a four foot cabinet, onto a tile stone floor, and across the room and up onto a bed??? Till now, I don't know how. Or why? I'm guessing it was time to get back to the cage and he wasn't gonna do any more mountain climbing when the human can make it happen like magic?? LOL....still, although I watched closely to see if he had injured himself, turned out he was fine. And it still kinda tickles me that of all the things he could do with his freedom , he went for the HUGE hamster with no hair that walks on two legs....

I'll take a hamster that runs away from his cage to be near me, over a ham that makes a beeline for the cellar or between the walls, or .....or.......? anyday!

[alanjamesblair]

Is there any way to connect her bin cage to the new one? She could be cross about changing over, and if she had some time to move, it might make her less annoyed with your eviction attempts?

She sounds like a real cutie. I love the smart ones.