The Exciting Adventure of Myshka On The Floor...
.... And Other Places, Too. (With lengthy asides on linguistics and operant conditioning.)
(x-posted, at some point or another, to hamsters unless I got it wrong)
It's been a week now since the little dove-grey mouse hamster came home with me, and in the in-between time we have had some adventures and made some progress.
I decided that his name is Myshka - 'mysh' for mouse and the '-ka' suffix for little - in Russian. It's fun to say. Runner-up name was Laoshu, little mouse in Chinese. Now, 'Mishka' (I not Y) means little bear, which sounds almost-but-not-quite the same in English. Being that my accent muddies the two up (I attempt foreign words in Estonian by default, and my American English is wacky too - Florida raised by New Yorkers), I'm never quite sure what I'm calling him at any given moment. Though, "little bear mouse" is a good way to describe a hamster, I think.
I'm taking things slowly, because he is definitely the youngest ham I've ever had and also the wildest - he's very hand-shy, and when I brought him home would freeze or startle when I spoke or moved or loomed in his general direction. The rule I have set for myself is: if he spooks, I'm pushing too hard. He spent the first few days being left alone while conversations and dog-being-dog happened in his general vicinity, and now he's not bothered by my voice, presence, or my dog's adamantium claws on the hardwood floor.
About the fourth or fifth day something alarming happened: I woke up, and peered in the cage on my way to the coffeemaker, as I do every day, and there was no hamster. I opened the cage, tipped up the furniture, dug through the bedding: still no hamster. I looked around on the floor: no hamster. That meant he was in the room... somewhere. The cage was secure, just as I'd left it, and it sits on a three-foot-tall bookcase. This couldn't be good.
I brought the dog in, because she is even better than I am at detecting small sounds, and watched her while we both listened quietly. Eventually there was a scuffle somewhere in the vicinity of my nightstand. Dog perked up and watched the area with interest. I did the same, and I heard the sounds of something: too big to be a tropical bug. I shuffled Dog out of the room and investigated. There, looking like a dust bunny with ink-drop eyes, in the bottom back corner of my milk-crate nightstand, was Myshka -- who had, of course, found and gotten into my Emergency Chocolate. Other than being a bit dusty and hopped up on sugar he was perfectly fine, so I scooped him up into a cup and transferred him back to the cage.
I couldn't be too upset, because over the past few days he'd stopped hiding and started exploring, trading fear for inquisitiveness. This was just the logical end to that: he'd found a wiggle spot in the cage and gotten out. I much prefer a confident curious ham to a scared one. I'd gotten this cage for Jack, who was enormous, and technically it's not a hamster cage at all, but a starter home for rats. The bars are half-inch spaced, but there's a bit where the walls and ceiling connect that is slightly wider. I figured that's where Myshka got out: he's tiny, and if the head fits the rest of the rodent will follow. So I dug up some cardboard, cut it to fit the top of the cage, set it on top, and weighted it down with a photo album. Problem solved. Myshka spent the next few hours sniffling around sadly up at the top of things, because he'd had fun on the floor and wanted to do it again. Gotta go up to get down, apparently.
Other than that, things have been going better than I'd expected, for a spooky baby who's probably never spent this much time with people before. The big turning point was when I offered a yogurt drop balanced on my fingertip: he'd have to approach the Giant Scary Hand to get the Amazing Smelling Treat, which he did, and then nommed happily. From there things changed: suddenly I was a potential bringer of delicious food, and not a giant scary ape thing that made bad sounds.
That was our turning point. He figured out how to beg at the bars the same night, and I dutifully gave him a bunch of seeds - sort of like a Pez dispenser, but backwards. That's his new favorite trick, and he has been doing it a lot.
Now - I use reward-based operant conditioning on my animals. This stuff works great. A short explanation would be like this: I try to get the animal to perform a behavior I want. If they perform the behavior, they get a high-value reward. For the dog it's either food or playtime with a valued toy; for a hamster it's particularly delicious treats. That's the positive-reinforcement stimulus. If I don't get the behavior, then they don't get any reward: that's a neutral stimulus, neither reward nor punishment. The treat is still on offer though, so the animal can try other behaviors to see if they can get it. For the dog that means she'll roll through every trick she knows when i'm trying to shape new behavior. For the hamster... well, he's new to this, so it mostly means confusion. But we're working on it.
After that comes the shaping, where you reward behavior in increments until you get them from "WTF" to easily doing a complex series of tasks. For Myshka, that means: first he gets the treat when I bring it to him. Then he gets the treat when he approaches my hand. Then he has to climb onto my stationary hand to get it. Then he has to climb on my hand and eat it there while I lift him up, which is the beginning of being handled. The end result of this would be that he'd come willingly to my hand, because that usually means food, and in the interim he would become accustomed to being handled.
There's no force involved: either he does it and gets the treat, or he decides not to and there is no punishment. If he grabs the treat and takes off, that's what happens. (but I round up the treats when they're left behind, so they don't lose their value) It's all up to him. But delicious snacks are very tempting, and every time we do this successfully I'm a little less scary and a little more appealing.
That's the theory, anyway. We'll see if it works. Though it seems to be: he's been climbing onto my stationary hand to retrieve a treat. He's still touch-shy, but we'll work on that in the same way. Get treat, eat treat while being touched. So it goes.
I have to confess, though, I still really miss Jack. He had all of this stuff down: he was a big amiable lummox who just wanted attenton and petting and food. I keep going in thinking that I can just scoop Myshka up and shuffle him onto my shoulder, then I remember: new hamster, new rules. I'll get the hang of it. It's a learning process for us both.
And after this RIDICULOUS WALL OF TEXT, I offer photos! yay!
We know he's a boy because, hello balls.
For the first few nights, instead of sleeping in the house, he slept behind it. I don't know what's up with that.
He doesn't know that's a toilet yet. He thinks it's a thing to dig under. We'll work that out eventually.
(x-posted, at some point or another, to hamsters unless I got it wrong)
It's been a week now since the little dove-grey mouse hamster came home with me, and in the in-between time we have had some adventures and made some progress.
I decided that his name is Myshka - 'mysh' for mouse and the '-ka' suffix for little - in Russian. It's fun to say. Runner-up name was Laoshu, little mouse in Chinese. Now, 'Mishka' (I not Y) means little bear, which sounds almost-but-not-quite the same in English. Being that my accent muddies the two up (I attempt foreign words in Estonian by default, and my American English is wacky too - Florida raised by New Yorkers), I'm never quite sure what I'm calling him at any given moment. Though, "little bear mouse" is a good way to describe a hamster, I think.
I'm taking things slowly, because he is definitely the youngest ham I've ever had and also the wildest - he's very hand-shy, and when I brought him home would freeze or startle when I spoke or moved or loomed in his general direction. The rule I have set for myself is: if he spooks, I'm pushing too hard. He spent the first few days being left alone while conversations and dog-being-dog happened in his general vicinity, and now he's not bothered by my voice, presence, or my dog's adamantium claws on the hardwood floor.
About the fourth or fifth day something alarming happened: I woke up, and peered in the cage on my way to the coffeemaker, as I do every day, and there was no hamster. I opened the cage, tipped up the furniture, dug through the bedding: still no hamster. I looked around on the floor: no hamster. That meant he was in the room... somewhere. The cage was secure, just as I'd left it, and it sits on a three-foot-tall bookcase. This couldn't be good.
I brought the dog in, because she is even better than I am at detecting small sounds, and watched her while we both listened quietly. Eventually there was a scuffle somewhere in the vicinity of my nightstand. Dog perked up and watched the area with interest. I did the same, and I heard the sounds of something: too big to be a tropical bug. I shuffled Dog out of the room and investigated. There, looking like a dust bunny with ink-drop eyes, in the bottom back corner of my milk-crate nightstand, was Myshka -- who had, of course, found and gotten into my Emergency Chocolate. Other than being a bit dusty and hopped up on sugar he was perfectly fine, so I scooped him up into a cup and transferred him back to the cage.
I couldn't be too upset, because over the past few days he'd stopped hiding and started exploring, trading fear for inquisitiveness. This was just the logical end to that: he'd found a wiggle spot in the cage and gotten out. I much prefer a confident curious ham to a scared one. I'd gotten this cage for Jack, who was enormous, and technically it's not a hamster cage at all, but a starter home for rats. The bars are half-inch spaced, but there's a bit where the walls and ceiling connect that is slightly wider. I figured that's where Myshka got out: he's tiny, and if the head fits the rest of the rodent will follow. So I dug up some cardboard, cut it to fit the top of the cage, set it on top, and weighted it down with a photo album. Problem solved. Myshka spent the next few hours sniffling around sadly up at the top of things, because he'd had fun on the floor and wanted to do it again. Gotta go up to get down, apparently.
Other than that, things have been going better than I'd expected, for a spooky baby who's probably never spent this much time with people before. The big turning point was when I offered a yogurt drop balanced on my fingertip: he'd have to approach the Giant Scary Hand to get the Amazing Smelling Treat, which he did, and then nommed happily. From there things changed: suddenly I was a potential bringer of delicious food, and not a giant scary ape thing that made bad sounds.
That was our turning point. He figured out how to beg at the bars the same night, and I dutifully gave him a bunch of seeds - sort of like a Pez dispenser, but backwards. That's his new favorite trick, and he has been doing it a lot.
Now - I use reward-based operant conditioning on my animals. This stuff works great. A short explanation would be like this: I try to get the animal to perform a behavior I want. If they perform the behavior, they get a high-value reward. For the dog it's either food or playtime with a valued toy; for a hamster it's particularly delicious treats. That's the positive-reinforcement stimulus. If I don't get the behavior, then they don't get any reward: that's a neutral stimulus, neither reward nor punishment. The treat is still on offer though, so the animal can try other behaviors to see if they can get it. For the dog that means she'll roll through every trick she knows when i'm trying to shape new behavior. For the hamster... well, he's new to this, so it mostly means confusion. But we're working on it.
After that comes the shaping, where you reward behavior in increments until you get them from "WTF" to easily doing a complex series of tasks. For Myshka, that means: first he gets the treat when I bring it to him. Then he gets the treat when he approaches my hand. Then he has to climb onto my stationary hand to get it. Then he has to climb on my hand and eat it there while I lift him up, which is the beginning of being handled. The end result of this would be that he'd come willingly to my hand, because that usually means food, and in the interim he would become accustomed to being handled.
There's no force involved: either he does it and gets the treat, or he decides not to and there is no punishment. If he grabs the treat and takes off, that's what happens. (but I round up the treats when they're left behind, so they don't lose their value) It's all up to him. But delicious snacks are very tempting, and every time we do this successfully I'm a little less scary and a little more appealing.
That's the theory, anyway. We'll see if it works. Though it seems to be: he's been climbing onto my stationary hand to retrieve a treat. He's still touch-shy, but we'll work on that in the same way. Get treat, eat treat while being touched. So it goes.
I have to confess, though, I still really miss Jack. He had all of this stuff down: he was a big amiable lummox who just wanted attenton and petting and food. I keep going in thinking that I can just scoop Myshka up and shuffle him onto my shoulder, then I remember: new hamster, new rules. I'll get the hang of it. It's a learning process for us both.
And after this RIDICULOUS WALL OF TEXT, I offer photos! yay!
We know he's a boy because, hello balls.
For the first few nights, instead of sleeping in the house, he slept behind it. I don't know what's up with that.
He doesn't know that's a toilet yet. He thinks it's a thing to dig under. We'll work that out eventually.