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Should I get a hamster?
Ficus_religiosa
Veteran
I'm in the process of talking my girlfriend into letting me have a hamster (I let her have a dog, after all). We've had two hamsters before and they're just the ideal pet I think..
Anyone else had a hamster?
Our first hamster was called Hamtaro. He was a black with a white band... I think he lived for about three years..
Sometimes when we had dinner, we placed him in the bowl of salad where he would search for the tastiest left overs. He also loved when we fed him some egg white from the boiled eggs at breakfast.. Once my girlfriend forgot to close the cage, so he escaped and lived for two days in a basket with yarn - we placed some food on the floor in the living room and the room in which his cage was and waited for him to take some. When we knew he was in the living room, it was easy to just wait for him to come out to forage.. She just picked him up and carried him back to the cage, as he was very tame and never tried to run and hide..
The second hamster was called Bella. She lived in a small, pink cage at first. But we soon realized it was far too small and she was able to escape it. She also hid in the living room
She was not completely tame at the time, but did not try to run away when I saw her.. She was then moved to Hamtaro's old cage. Today I would say it's also too small for a Syrian hamster.. Every morning, when I got up, she walked up the bridge to the top of the cage and waited to have treats from me..
Anyone else had a hamster?
Our first hamster was called Hamtaro. He was a black with a white band... I think he lived for about three years..
Sometimes when we had dinner, we placed him in the bowl of salad where he would search for the tastiest left overs. He also loved when we fed him some egg white from the boiled eggs at breakfast.. Once my girlfriend forgot to close the cage, so he escaped and lived for two days in a basket with yarn - we placed some food on the floor in the living room and the room in which his cage was and waited for him to take some. When we knew he was in the living room, it was easy to just wait for him to come out to forage.. She just picked him up and carried him back to the cage, as he was very tame and never tried to run and hide..
The second hamster was called Bella. She lived in a small, pink cage at first. But we soon realized it was far too small and she was able to escape it. She also hid in the living room
She was not completely tame at the time, but did not try to run away when I saw her.. She was then moved to Hamtaro's old cage. Today I would say it's also too small for a Syrian hamster.. Every morning, when I got up, she walked up the bridge to the top of the cage and waited to have treats from me.. 
1
Comments
Personally, I'm looking forward to getting a bunny. I'll name it Professor Brown (brownie points for those who get the reference).
I had a hamster when I was a kid. She was cute and everything, but you just can't love them the same way. They don't like to cuddle or anything.
They are low maintenance though, so they're a good pet if you don't have a lot of time and you have enough wd40 on hand to stop the wheel squeaking
But as you have a dog, won't he try to eat the hamster? Get a puppy and your gfs dog and your dog can be friends!
hamsters are small, fast and very very 'interesting' to dogs with a strong prey/chase instinct. Dogs like terriers and pointers and labs, etc. It's always a challenge and there's always a risk involved when mixing dogs or cats with prey animals under the same roof.
My daughter's 10 lb rat terrier (a generally sweet dog) killed one of my first (small) parrots when the bird opened her cage door and climbed out to walk around on the outside of the cage...
We didn't know she knew how to unlatch the cage door, and it all happened in the blink of an eye with two adults in the house. It was all over before anyone noticed the cage open.
I've known of several hamsters and guinea pigs meeting their end in similar ways from my time as a vet tech, too. Think carefully, seriously consider the dog in the house first.
Our dog won't eat it once it realizes the hamster is not a toy - she's a 3 pound Chihuahua so prey drive is pretty minimal and she gets along with guinea pigs just fine. She treats them as dogs initially - licking, bowing and jumping around them. When they don't respond, she starts really sniffing them real good and eventually leaves them :P
They will never be left alone together, though. The hamster will live in a big cage with plastic-walls and a wire top in our rest room - which is forbidden land to our dog, as she eats the toilet paper. So it's totally dog-proof
1) I can call it "Jeff" for short
2) It will have a theme song: IllDisposed - Jeff
3) Nobody would think it's called Jeffrey, which makes it funny (I also considered "Henning" - a popular boys' name in my country some 50 years ago)
I am starting to get away from pets, though. As ours have died (at one point we had I think 7 pets, now we have 2 ferrets, the dog and the tortoise, who will probably outlive us) we haven't been replacing them. I just personally don't get a good feeling out of supporting the pet trade. Dogs and cats are different, depending where you get them from of course because of their long domesticated history. But animals like reptiles are still largely taken from the wild and then sold and bred until they die. So, we won't be getting any more reptiles, and if we do get another pet in the future, it'll be a service dog for our son.
It just kind of weirds me out thinking about animals who really belong in the wild being pets as entertainment, which is what it comes down to with chameleons and most other reptiles. They don't generally provide companionship, some of them you can't even handle. We had a veiled chameleon which was an amazing cool pet, but once we got him, I just felt wrong about it. Chameleons don't belong as pets. They are high maintenance because they are very sensitive to their environment, and being in a cage of any sort is not conducive to their health. Many of them die very young because of the stresses put on them. It's just sad. I live in the frozen tundra (well not quite, but close enough, lol). Animals from Madagascar and Africa just don't belong here, no matter how cool I think they are. It's just something I've more recently begun thinking about.
Dude, I've been married 22 years, and I ain't that whipped.
Sounds like you have a lucky girlfriend.
I used to raise and breed hamsters. Go for it. They're great little critters.
Then she had to rescue a Russian Turtle and is worried it's depressed and wants company because it just sits in its cage and stares at its food bowl, and recently she rescued a kitten that the next door neighbors moved out and abandoned, just left it sitting on the doorstep meowing for its family. That's on top of the three rescued dogs that take up all the bed every night and jump all over me when i come in from work. It's like living with Ellie May Clampett from the Beverly Hillbillies. I never know what additional critters she's going to adopt next. I wish all I had to worry about was a hamster.
Come to think of it, I really am just as whipped, ain't I? Now I'm depressed.
Can i recommend Mr Bo-jangles as a name lol
You have a THREE LB Chihuahua?? Wow.
Maybe you better make sure the hamster doesn't have a strong prey drive.....
My boyfriend has a tiny chihuahua as well. I'm afraid when I get my rabbit that it will kick his dogs ass.
And afterall, you look like a gerbal person.
When people wonder why our dog is so well behaved and sweet, and we tell them why, it's like they just don't want to get it...
They think our dog was a natural God-send.. In fact we trained and still train her very much, every day in an understanding, caring way - she has had numerous issues, especially with anxiety when in the dark and with other dogs.. She's almost over that now and is probably the least vocal, most trusty Chihuahua most people will ever meet
We use positive reinforcement. You do the right thing you get praise and treats, you do the wrong thing; we try again..
Our dog trainer based her lessons on the latest scientific research in dog behavior, and I must say her methods work.. We don't ever shout at or scold our dog - we don't have to. She always tries to please us the best way she knows (of course sometimes she doesn't want to go outside in the rain, but there's not really anything to do about that. She has to go, and so she reluctantly follows us outside after a few call ins :P )
I managed to rescue one hamster but the other was too far gone and died the following day. That taught me a lesson early in life about the thoughtless cruelty that anyone is capable of.