Lesson 11: Hands That Wait: Handling an Older Hamster

At her heaviest, Clem weighed about 150 grams. That is roughly the weight of a small apple, or of the mobile phone in June's pocket. When I weigh her on the kitchen scale now, the number is a little lower. I once held a 150-gram bag of rice in one palm and tried to imagine it breathing. It was hard to imagine. It was also hard to forget.

My hand, laid flat on that same scale, weighs more than she ever has. I checked one evening out of curiosity, feeling slightly silly, with Otto holding the notebook. My two cupped hands could hold her three times over. To Clem, I realised, a human hand is not a small thing at all. It is a large, warm, strong-smelling shape that comes from above, and she has only her nose, her ears and her whiskers to tell her what it means.

This lesson is about how our family learned to hold her in her later season. She was a little over two years old by then, and she had always been easy to handle. But easy is not the same as sturdy, and an older body that has slowed down needs hands that have slowed down too.

First: How do we wake her without startling her?

The short answer is that we try not to. Most of the time there is no reason to wake a sleeping hamster at all. Clem's day is our night, and her afternoon sleep is her deep sleep. If we want to see her, the kindest way is to wait until dusk, when she wakes on her own, and meet her then. I have come to think of handling as something to fit around her clock, not something to fit her clock around.

But there are times when waking is needed. The vet's appointment is at four in the afternoon, and it cannot move. Or a wet corner of the nest has to be dealt with. On those days, I wake her slowly, in stages, the way I would want to be woken myself on a winter morning: not with a hand on the shoulder and a bright light, but with a sound in the next room, then a voice, then the curtains opened a little.

So I start with sound. I speak to her softly from beside the cage, her name and a few ordinary words, for a minute or so. Then I move a little bedding near the nest, not on it, so she hears the rustle. A hamster sees poorly but hears well, and these sounds tell her something is happening before anything touches her. Then I wait. Often a nose appears. Sometimes a whole face, crumpled and cross. I wait longer.

What I never do is reach into the nest and lift her out of sleep. I tried to imagine it once from her side: deep in a warm, dark room, and suddenly a giant hand closes round you and the room is gone. No wonder a startled hamster may nip. It is not bad temper. It is fright. And fright, for a small, older body, is something I would rather not add to her day.

Waking also has a cost afterwards. A hamster woken in the middle of her sleep does not always settle again quickly. On the one afternoon we had to wake Clem for an early appointment, she was restless all evening, coming out and going back, rearranging the nest as if she had lost something. I wrote it down. Since then, when the clinic offers a choice of times, I ask for the latest slot of the day, close to her own dusk. It is a small kindness, like booking a train that lets someone sleep in.

Second: What is the safest way to pick her up?

We stopped picking her up from above. When Clem was young, we sometimes lifted her by sliding a hand under her from the side and closing the fingers, quick and neat. Now we scoop. Two hands, cupped together like a bowl, lowered into the bedding beside her, and then we wait for her to walk in. Most of the time she does. She sniffs the fingers, steps onto the palm, and sits down as if on a familiar chair.

The other way is the cup. Ravi cut down a small wooden box in his shed, with its row of labelled screw jars above the bench, so that it has low sides and an open end. We lay it in the cage, she walks into it out of curiosity, and we lift the box rather than her. This is especially useful for the travel box before a vet visit. A box does not squeeze, and it does not have nervous fingers.

The most important rule is height. We hold her low. Always. Before anyone lifts Clem, they sit down, either on the floor or at the table, so that if she wriggles free or steps off a hand, she has only a short way to go and lands on something soft. I put a folded towel on my lap when I hold her. I learned this from watching Mira, who always sits cross-legged on the rug by the cage, with a cushion beside her knees, before she even opens the door.

I also hold her over something, never over empty air. The table, the rug, my lap with a towel on it. Hamsters can move very quickly when they want to, even old ones, and a sudden step off a hand held high is a fall, and a fall is exactly what we rearranged her whole cage to avoid. There is no point building her a bungalow and then carrying her about at the height of a first-floor window.

Third: How long should we hold her now?

Not long. When Clem was young, she would sit in a hand for ten minutes, then climb up an arm and explore a shoulder, and we would laugh and put her back when she began to look for an escape. Now I keep handling short, often a minute or two, and I let her tell me when it is over. A short, calm moment is better than a long, tiring one. It is like visiting an elderly friend. Better to stay twenty minutes and leave them smiling than two hours and leave them worn out.

She tells us in small ways. She begins to walk to the edge of the hand and look down. She turns round and round. She starts to wash her face in a slow, distracted way. She presses her nose into the gap between my fingers, as if looking for a door. Any of these, for me, means it is time to go home. I lower my hands into the cage, beside the spot I took her from, and let her walk off.

Putting her back in the same spot matters. Her map is made of smells and paths, and if I set her down somewhere else, she has to find her way home, nose low, from an unfamiliar corner. If I put her down by her nest or by the ramp she was using, she knows where she is at once. I think of it as dropping a friend at their own front door rather than at the end of the street.

We also agreed on a limit for the whole household. Clem is handled once in an evening at most, and on weighing night that counts as her once. Without the limit, each person might take a turn, each turn short and kind, and the evening would add up to a long one for her. It is the same with an old relative at a family gathering. Every visitor stays only five minutes. Twelve visitors, and the afternoon is gone.

Handling, I should add, is also a gentle look at her. While she sits in my hands I notice the things I cannot see through the bars: the feel of her weight, the state of her fur, whether her bottom is clean and dry, whether there is anything new under my fingers. I do not go looking or prod. I simply notice. Anything new, a lump, a wet or dirty bottom, a change I cannot explain, is something to show the vet.

Fourth: What are the children's rules?

We sat down together one evening and wrote the rules out on a single sheet, which now hangs on the side of the bookshelf beside the cage. Mira wrote it out in neat letters at the desk by her bedroom window, among the sketchbooks, and drew a small picture of Clem in one corner. Otto contributed the title, which is “Clem’s Rules for Hands.” I thought it was a good title.

The first rule is to ask. Nobody takes Clem out without asking a grown-up first, and the answer is often “not now,” because she is asleep or because she has already been handled that day. Otto found this hard at first. He is a boy who lines up pebbles and toy animals along the hallway floor in long, careful parades, and he likes to touch the things he loves. But he learned, and now he asks before he even opens the cage door.

The second rule is to sit. Nobody holds Clem while standing up, ever. The holder sits on the floor or at the table, with a towel or cushion on their lap. The third rule is to wash. Hands are washed before and after, and hands that smell of food are washed twice, because a hand that smells like supper is a hand that might be nibbled. The fourth rule is to wait. Nobody lifts her; she walks into the hand or the box on her own.

The last rule is the one I care about most. When Clem wants to go home, she goes home. Nobody holds on for “just one more minute.” Mira understood this at once. Otto took longer. But the evening he noticed her turning round in his palm, and said quietly, “She wants her house,” and lowered his hands back into the cage, I was prouder of him than I can easily say.

The rules apply to the grown-ups too. That was Mira’s idea, and a sharp one. June once lifted Clem standing up at the kitchen counter, in a hurry before work, and Mira pointed at the sheet on the bookshelf without a word. June sat down. Nobody laughed, though I think we all wanted to. Rules that only bind children are not really rules about the hamster. They are rules about children. Ours are about Clem, and so they bind everyone in the house, me included.

Fifth: How do we move her for weighing or a visit?

Most of our handling now has a purpose. Once a week, at the same time on the same evening, Clem goes on the small kitchen scale. A few times a year she goes in the travel box to see Dr. Hale. Both used to involve picking her up and putting her down, quickly, more than once. Both, we found, could be done with almost no lifting at all.

For weighing, we use the deep, high-sided bowl that is kept only for her. I set it on the kitchen scale first, press the button that sets the number back to zero, and put a pinch of her own bedding in the bottom. Then I lower my cupped hands into the cage and wait for her to walk in, carry her low across the room to the table, and let her step down into the bowl. The number that appears is her. She sits, sniffing the edges, while Mira writes the figure in the notebook. Then she walks back into my hands and goes home the way she came. Nobody's fingers have closed around her once.

I like this way for another reason. A hamster who is held while being weighed may wriggle, and a wriggling hamster on a scale gives a wobbly number. In the high-sided bowl, with her own smell under her feet, she sits still more often, and the reading settles in a second or two. The method is gentler and the numbers are better. That is not often true of things in life, and I enjoy it when it is.

For the vet, the travel box goes into the cage at dusk the evening before, with a pinch of her own bedding inside, so that by the time we need it, it already smells of her. On the day, we wait for her to walk in, close the door gently, and carry the box with both hands, level, the way someone carries a full bowl of soup across a kitchen. In the car, I hold the box level on my lap, never leaving it loose on a seat where a sudden stop could tip it.

At the clinic, I keep the box closed while we wait, and I set it on my lap rather than on the floor near other animals. The fish tank in the waiting room hums its slow tune. Clem sleeps, mostly. When Dr. Hale is ready, the box is opened on the examination table, and Dr. Hale lifts her in the same low, cupped way we use at home, which I take as a quiet sign that we have been doing it right.

Questions Around the Table

Otto asked, with a toy giraffe parked beside his plate, “Does Clem like being held?” I said I thought she tolerates it and sometimes seems to enjoy a little of it, especially when she can explore. But she does not need it the way we need to hold her. That is why we keep it short and kind.

June asked, “Should we stop handling her altogether, to be safe?” I said that seemed too far. Short, calm handling lets us take her to the vet without fuss, weigh her, and notice small changes. Done gently and low, it is part of looking after her. Stopping completely would make the times we must handle her more frightening.

Mira asked, setting down a pencil, “What if she nips me?” I said to stay calm, lower her gently back into the cage, and wash the finger. A nip almost always means fright or that she was woken. It is a message, not a punishment, and the answer is to listen to it.

Ravi asked, “Would gloves be safer for the children?” I said gloves make hands clumsy and harder to read, and they smell strange to her. Bare, washed hands, held low and still, are better. If anyone feels nervous, they can use the wooden box instead.

Otto, last of all, asked, “Will I still be allowed to hold her when she is very old?” I said yes, if she is well enough and if he keeps to the rules, and that holding her gently when she is very old might be one of the kindest things he ever does. He went quiet for a moment and then asked to read the rules sheet again.

Points to Watch

Wake an older hamster only when there is a real need, and then slowly, with your voice and soft sounds first, so that she is never lifted straight out of sleep.

Hold her low, sitting down, over a soft surface, and let her walk into your cupped hands or into a box instead of reaching down and grabbing her from above.

Keep handling short and stop as soon as she walks to the edge, turns round and round or begins a slow wash, and put her back in the same spot you took her from.

A new lump, a wet or dirty bottom, a change in her weight or fur, or anything else you notice while holding her is something to show the vet. If you are concerned, see a vet.

Make sure every child knows the household rules and follows them every time, especially to ask first, to sit down and to let her go home when she wants to.