I am a sucker for animals that need a home. Our African Grey parrot Mezmo is a rescue bird. (He came to us just last December) Mezmo had some behavior problems but after serious clicker training he has changed drastically. It took some work with great guidance from a set of Bird Tricks DVD's I purchased. My only regret was not buying the DVD's sooner.
My youngest sister is moving out-of-state soon and I guess her friend thought it would be the perfect chance to pawn some angry hamsters off on someone. (someone she may never see ever again.) After accepting them my sister realized that there was no way she could take the hamsters on the long move.
In turn our family recently acquired 2 dwarf hamsters with cage and supplies, from my little sister. They are two girl Dwarf hamsters, one is white with pink eyes and the other looks just like the picture. Her friend's kids had stopped handling them as often as they should due to other newer pets in the house, which was why their mom got rid of them. The hamsters are not very well socialized and they will bite. They are very aggressive when treats are given. I think they had also been teased. We are going to try to do clicker training with them. Clicker training is a great trust building activity. It has worked very well with our parrot.
I learned what I know about clicker training from the DVD's we purchased from Bird Tricks. After some research on the web I found someone using clicker training for hamsters as well. Rodents being a food reward type animal clicker training the hamsters will be very similar to the bird. I will just use what I learned from the DVD's and adapt the training for small animals and not a bird.
My goal is to get the hamsters to the point that my kid's can hold them without the hamsters attempting to bite them. As a family, we plan to go visit the nearby pet store this weekend and pick out some new accessories for the hamsters' cage. Our oldest two daughters want to name the hamsters as a family this weekend as well.
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- Is a Hamster a Good First Pet? (brighthub.com)
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