Hamster still cannot be tamed after 8 months

[jxnnxml]

Hi, this is my first post . I don't want to make this too long of a story but it may be one.

I used to have hamsters a few years ago so back in August when my parents impulsively bought my brother one for his birthday and realised that it's too much responsibility for him, I ended up with her. She was originally in a large petsathome cage but after doing some (updated) research, she now lives in an alaska hamster cage. Because my parents bought her from petsathome, we have no idea how old she is but she's a big hamster and hasn't grown much since we got her.

The drive home was,,, an adventure. She chewed through the two boxes she was put in and was already too much for everyone to handle after one night in the house she jumped out of the cage when i was changing her water and ended up behind my snake rubs. Fastest hamster I've ever had lol.

After a week of letting her settle in, I started to hand feed her and pet her but she absolutely hates being picked up. I tried cupping her from underneath but she just freaks out and jumps, no matter how high you are (luckily it's only ever happened in her cage as I'm scared of a repeat of the first night).

Over the past 8 months I feel as if I've tried almost every tactic I've come across (she won't step onto my hand at all, I've tried having her in an empty bathtub with me but she just hides) but she is still a little jumpy and cannot handle being picked up. I'm happy enough for her to remain untamed(?) but because she panics from it, she only every gets out to run around in the empty bathtub or in her ball (which I've recently learned is bad for her so that'll have to stop)

I just feel bad for her as I feel she'd have a better quality of life if she got to come out more

I'm open to any suggestion at the point haha. I just really love this hamster and think she deserves more <3

[Shadow Cat]

Sounds like my girl! Syrian female from Pets at Home too. I had to take her home on the DLR (an overground train in east London) and she chewed through one box half way home. It was then literally a race against time before she got through the second one and I lost her forever! Thankfully, I made it.

This was in January and Peggy still isn't tame, but I believe I'm making progress, I'm just doing a littler every day and trying to be patient. I was spoilt with my last boy, he was a rescue and he was already perfectly tame and really friendly when I got him so I didn't have to do any of this. I'm just learning as I go.

Where I'm at with Peggy is she will sit on my hand in the cage, has no problem eating from my hand, and will let me pet her back when she's preoccupid with eating. She hates being picked up too, I've started slowly lifting my hand up a little bit when she's sitting on it inside the cage and she usually jumps off at the moment but I'm going to keep at it. She will crawl out the doo to investigate if I open it but rarely comes all the way out. If I need to take her out to clean or to transfer her to her pen, I will make her crawl into a shoebox.

I miss cuddles with my boy, but I'm learning that girls and different (as if I didn't know!) and I probably won't ever get that with Peggy. She doesn't like being outside her cage but that's ok. She seems happy enough in her cage, she has plenty to do. I had a similar worry to you about not giving her more out of cage time and some other users on my thread made me feel loads better about it. Please don't feel too bad, I think letting your pet tell you what they want and when they're happy or stressed is better than forcing them to do something they don't want to.

However, I think it's important not to give up on taming completely. If she ever needs medical treatment it will be less stressful for both her and the vet if she's at least somewhat comfortable being handled.

Good luck!

[jxnnxml]

They definitely sound similar lol. She won't even sit in my hand when i try and hand feed her so I think she's just going to be one of those hamsters that doesn't like being handled.

A few months back i noticed her backend was wet and matted and I immediately suspected wet tail so the vet fit us in asap. Currently the only way I can pick her up is by placing my fingers around her belly and using my other hand to support her butt but she only lasts 10 seconds or so before she starts to squirm. So when she needed to go to the vets it was easy enough to check her over and so (turns out she'd just must have been peeing somewhere that made her backend wet haha).

Thank you for replying I'm hoping she'll just become more used to it over time

[Ria P]

I've always picked up my Syrian by placing my hand on his back and fingers around his belly. Before he was fully tame i picked him up like that and placed him immediately on my lap but i was sitting inside a playpen with the cage on the floor for safety in case he decided to jump.
That worked quite well and he got used to getting picked up. He didn't like the bath tub and would hide under the blanket i had put down.

I would definitely ditch the hamster ball or use it as a hamster taxi to transfer her in and out of her cage.