How to Teach a Dwarf Hamster Tricks
The best way to teach dwarf hamsters tricks is to use positive reinforcement, such as clicker training. This is because dwarf hamsters are so small that if you try to force them to do something, they may become injured. But if there is a reward coming, then they are more cooperative. The friendliest species of dwarf hamsters include the Campbell's or Russian dwarf hamster and the winter white hamster, according to Training Your Pet Hamster. Chinese dwarf hamsters and Roborovski dwarf hamsters are considered too skittish and too aggressive to try and tame or teach tricks to.
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Things You'll Need
- 5 small paper cups
- 5 different small pieces of food treats
- Many small pieces of individual hamster's favorite treat
- Plastic clicker
- Props like ladders, hoops or jumps
- Bathtub
- Pencil
Instructions
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Check the dwarf hamster at night to see if it is awake. Dwarf hamsters are nocturnal and so are best trained at night, according to Hamsterific. If your hamster is awake, it will be moving about, grooming and sniffing for food.
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Take food treats and paper cups to the bathtub. Place one small piece of food treat underneath each of five different paper cups. Place the hamster in the tub and watch to see which paper cup it knocks over to eat the food. Dwarf hamsters possess an excellent sense of smell and use that more than sight. From now on, give your hamster the food it selected only as a training reward, according to Hamtaroplanet.
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Prime the clicker. The goal is to teach the hamster that soon after a click comes a treat. Dwarf hamsters catch on to this really quickly. Click, then present the food piece. Keep on doing so until the hamster looks expectantly for the food after you click. This may take more than one training session.
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Teach the hamster to follow a pencil. Click and treat when the hamster touches the pencil. Move the pencil away very slowly, so the hamster follows. If the hamster follows, click and treat. You can move the pencil up a ladder or over a jump in order to help the hamster do a trick. The hamster follows the pencil in order to get treats.
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End each training session on a good note. Dwarf hamsters have short attention spans, so keep each training session to 10 minutes. Click and treat to end a session.
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Tips & Warnings
If you accidentally click, you must give a treat, because this helps reinforce the power of the clicker.
Dwarf hamsters get full rapidly, but will stuff treats into their cheek pouches for later. Be sure to remove any fresh foods from the cage 24 hours after giving them to the hamster, because the food will start to rot.
Each hamster learns at its own pace; some may not get the hang of clicker training.
Never hit a dwarf hamster, because they are very fragile.
Never work with a sick hamster.
Never wake a sleeping dwarf hamster, because it will bite.
References
Resources
- Photo Credit hamster image by claudiameyer from Fotolia.com
