Share It Sunday, Spotty, Spotty, Polkadoty!

Nominated by last week guest blogger Monty & Harlow.

Keep your mitts off my cheese, man

Each weekend, I clean out the hamster habitats.  As many of you are aware, I don't like to pick up the hamsters (I tried once with garden gloves and the hamster almost got away and it freaked me out so I never tried it again).  So, in order to get each hamster into the "critter keeper" (see below) - I usually turn it on its side, place a piece of cheese towards the back, open one of the cage doors, and let the hamster sniff out the cheese and follow it into the trap, er, safe "critter keeper".  

Critter keeper - picture from Petsmart website

This past weekend, Cornelius, my white dwarf hamster, outsmarted me.  I did not place the enticing piece of cheese far enough back in the keeper and he reached in with his little paws and before I knew it - had snatched the tasty morsel and was already back in his own cage nibbling away. This has not happened before but I figured I could just give him a nudge towards the keeper with a fistful of Kleenex (I know - genius, right?).  First, let me tell you that approaching a small prey animal like this from behind is never a good idea. Case in point - Cornelius turned around and ripped into my wad of Kleenex with his tiny teeth and batted at the wad with his sharp little claws and caused no small amount of damage to the poor tissues.  That could easily have been my fingers!  

What to do with an irate hamster angrily munching down on cheese in the wrong place?  My method was to keep waving the Kleenex around and letting it touch his head a couple of times until he finally dropped the cheese to retaliate against the offending tissues.  I then craftily reached into his cage and stole the cheese back.  V for victory!  Next, I placed the cheese in the keeper far enough back that Cornelius had no choice but to enter all the way in to get his precious cheese. It feels good to have, in the end, outsmarted a hamster.  

To recap:

• Always make sure that the cheese is placed far back in the critter keeper.
• If for some reason bullet point one is ignored, do not try to nudge the hamster towards the keeper.  He'll get pretty ticked.
• Always guard your fingers against testy hamsters that only want to be left alone to eat their cheese.

Cheese, always delicious, sometimes controversial

"If you ever touch my cheese again, it'll be more than Kleenex that gets shredded, sister."

"I wonder if hamsters taste like cheese..."

Spotty Spotty Polkadotty!

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From the author Molly The Wally