When Sammy died, I was once again left with an empty tank. On 14^th March I bought a little brown Syrian who I named Rin. She is named after the little girl who tags along with the youkai (demon) Sesshoumaru in Inuyasha. Not that my Rin-sama is anywhere near that cute, the little terror :P Click on the picture above for a video I shot of her having a wash the day I bought her (Xvid, 9MB; sorry for the poor quality, I made it with one of those cheap digital video cameras that shoot low-res 15fps videos!)

If only my Rin were this sweet...

As I mentioned on the main Hamsters page, Rin had an accident due to her habit of gnawing on the mesh lid of her tank. I was happy to let her do it, after all, what harm could come of it? Plus, it was cool to watch her clamber upside-down along the mesh. Then, on 29^th July '04 the (in retrospect) inevitable happened - she was gnawing away, got startled and caught her nose and mouth. I don't think a hamster has ever panicked me so much; I watched in horror as she scurried off to clean up, leaving bloody footprints in her wake. As I type this she is having a wash behind me, but just a short week ago I was terrified that she might not make it, or that when she visited the vet the next day he would recommend having her put down. Although I don't think I was half as scared as she was, she went back to bed for the rest of the night, and struggled to eat even softish food like yoghurt drops :( Luckily she seems to be on the road to recovery after a course of Baytril antibiotics and a diet of softened food (plus cheese, for the calcium.) I tried replacing the mesh with some with larger holes as I thought it would be safer, looked round and saw her head poking out the top! She now lives in a 15" tall tank, which she doesn't much like, but she'll get used to it :P

Rin is currently involved in Project Sesshoumaru, to examine the variations in a hamster's wheel-running speed over time.

Rin'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!