Misao was bought with her brother, Sammy, on October 16^th 2002. Like Sammy, she was named after a Magical Girl, in her case Sasami's best friend in Mahou Shoujo Pretty Sammy. Apparently "misao" means "faith" in Japanese, at any rate it seemed a nice cute name for her...

So shy...just like my Misao!

The Robos' personalities matched their namesakes'; Sammy was pretty fearless, and always willing to take food from my hand, while Misao was very timid. It took me a long time to get her to take food from my hand. In the end, I sat, sunflower in hand, with my arm dangling into her Mini Duna until she plucked up the courage to come and take it from me. Even then she wouldn't climb onto my hand, so I gave up. Then Willow died.

When Willow left the mortal coil, she left an empty glass tank - perfect for a small rodent with a big Wodent Wheel who liked to dig! I moved Misao into the tank, with plenty of bedding for her to dig in. She soon settled in, and mysteriously became more confident! It was incredible, after a few weeks she would start to sit on my hand and eat sunflower seeds! (I never took her out of the tank though, except for clean-outs. I tried bringing her out of her Duna once, two hours later I managed to catch her and swore never to try it again :P) In a sense she has been my most challenging hamster, I felt a great sense of achievement when she started to come out to see me!

Misao passed away on 9^th February 2004. While I miss her, I'm happy to know that she learned to trust me.

Misao's Pictures
Sorry about the picture size - they were mainly taken with a digital camera and didn't resize well, so it was a choice between big pictures or tiny ones!