...too smart for their own good.

One of the hamsters is living on a shelf in the hamster closet. No, I don't mean his cage is on the shelf, I mean the entire shelf has been converted into free-range hamsterspace. This particular hamster, whose name is Wolfgang, got the chance to live up there when we figured out that Alex and Rocky (the other two unpaired-off male hamsters, Otto and Cleo are together in the Big Box) like to play Stealth Escape Hamster by jumping off the shelf edge and either landing in another hamster's box or on the closet floor, and from the closet floor they can get to the whole house. We've put up a huge wall of cardboard on the edge of the shelf, stretching from one end of it to the other, since even Wolfgang seems determined to escape.

This worked as a deterrent for quite a while - the cardboard doesn't taste good and has tape all over it, so he wasn't chewing his way through it, so I figured life is good. Alex and Rocky are supposed to be the clever ones, and they're off in big glass-sided tanks instead of cardboard or plastic or mesh cages. Unfortunately, as I said, I have smart hamsters... apparently including Wolfgang. Over the course of the last day or two he moved a little hide-house that I'd built, a fairly large and weighty one as hide-houses go, from against the side wall to against the cardboard, climbed up on top of it, and managed from there to jump high enough to grab the edge of the retaining wall and scamper over it.

I found the little bugger about a half-hour ago on the floor of the closet, and I know he was on the shelf day before yesterday, so. Clever little guy. I have smart hamsters.

...anyone want one? *wry grin*

EDIT: The little fuzz-butt has not moved his house again yet, but he HAS gnawed a hole in the cardboard retaining wall right near the edge. The hole has been taped, more tape has been applied, and hopefully this time he'll stay put!