Last night I went into the kitchen to say goodnight to Peanut, but when I looked in her cage, I couldn’t find her! I thought maybe she was crammed really tight in her nest, but she wasn’t there, or inside her strawberry either. That’s when I noticed the cage door was unlatched and started hyperventilating. “She could be anywhere!” I told Joe, feeling sick to my stomach. Right then he happened to look down, and spotted her sitting calmly by the dishwasher. He scooped her up and handed her to me so I could examine her. Since her cage is on top of a tall cabinet, she had quite a long way down to the ground. Yet miraculously, she was unharmed. I examined her thoroughly and she doesn’t have any broken bones, bruises, or internal injuries from what I can tell. She has been walking around and grooming herself normally, or I would have taken her to the vet. I’ve checked on her several times today and she’s still acting like nothing happened.
It’s really amazing to me that she could fall/jump from that high, land on hard ceramic tile that has concrete underneath, and be perfectly ok. Next thing you know she’ll be leaving the house to run errands. ;)
But seriously, I feel so guilty thinking I left her door open. Joe thinks maybe it was a little loose and she climbed on top of her strawberry to aid in her escape. I took the strawberry out of her cage so this can’t happen again. I wonder just how long she was “free” before we found her. Probably not long at all, otherwise she probably would have taken off for the utility room since that’s what she does when she’s in her exercise ball. I’ve read conflicting information on whether a hamster can properly judge distances. Some people say they can, others say they cannot. One guy wrote about how his hamster, who also had a cage high off the ground, got out once but she stayed up there all day because she knew it wasn’t safe to jump off. Not my crazy hamster!
But in any case, I’m just happy my little CTU agent in training is ok.
Maybe you should move her cage lower? Our hamster got out of his cage all the time, no matter how secure we thought it was. Those little things are sneaky ;) He used to climb the stairs to our bedrooms and always either ended up in my trashcan (how??) and I would hear him scratching on the plastic to get out, or in my parents bedroom and my mom would hear him making noises. He was good though, always let us grab him and put him back.
Time to rename him Bauer.
I’m glad Peanut is okay! This happened with Ami once. His house is on a very high dresser in my bedroom. I’d taken part of it away to clean and failed to secure a door properly. I’m not sure if he fell/jumped the entire distance (I’m skeptical that hamsters can judge that) or if he first landed in the basket of laundry that was sitting there. Luckily, he didn’t get too far and I found him before any of my three dogs did!