Arlo a blind hamster

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Ivythelionhead

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Hi my name is Erin and I have been on this forum for a while and I wasn't sure where to post this on here anyway I got Arlo he's a Syrian hamster and he's a Panda bear hamster anyway he's blind and he's amazing, I mean he's quite bitey but I love him and I believe the reason he's very bitey is because he's blind, his eyes look the way my dogs eyes do who is also blind and I was just wondering if anyone has any experience with a blind hamster or a blind rabbit, Guinea pig, gerbil ect and what I can do to help him.
 
I do have experience with blind rabbits, but not hamsters! For my blind bun, she learned the house very well and had no issues getting around so long as we didn't move the furniture. I would always warn her with a touch on the head before I picked her up or petted her, since she was also deaf and that seemed to keep her calm. She even would do a few tricks based on the pattern of touching on her head (like go in her cage, etc.). I would say just don't change the enclosure of your guy often if at all, and make things easy for him to find. If you just got him, keep him confined to a very small area and you can slowly expand it as he gets used to it.
 
Same for me, Aki has been blind for about 7 months now. She really adjusted like a champ. She's still more graceful and accurate than Tybalt (who is 4 years younger and sees perfectly well!) when she jumps. The only real alterations I had to make were, like RavenousDragon said: to make sure that the furniture stays in the same place (my rabbits get big cardboard boxes to hide inside and I make sure to cut the holes on the same places when I replace them to avoid confusing her) ; to always always announce myself to avoid startling her (I speak when I enter the room and comment on everything I'm doing, using the same sentences with each action so she knows exactly what's happening when I open / close the window, put food in front of her or inside the cage, take her litter tray to clean it...) ; putting most of the food on the floor instead of in a hay rack or something (she learnt to use the rack again after a few weeks but she's clearly less comfortable doing it and will eat less than from the floor).
Aside from that, I don't think there is much to do. Animals adjust a lot better than humans to the loss of one of their senses. Aki is a bit more skittish than before, but she doesn't seem to be all that bothered by her blindness.
 
Okey thank you, Arlo is so sweet besides the biting thing which is why I thought he was blind in the first place and then I looked at his eyes and yes he is blind, I alway talk to him and I will alway say his name before o pet him just because if I startle him he will bite me which is understandable, my friends don't understand they said if he's blind I just get rid of him, but I love him and I don't wanna get rid of him because he can't see how stupid is that, anyway thank you for the input.
 
May I ask, what makes you think he is blind? You mentioned his eyes looking like your blind dog's eyes, but, unless it's a trick of the camera, his eyes look nothing like my blind dog's eyes.
 
When I look at my dogs eyes you can plainly see that he's blind there's nothing there just blank orbs and Arlos eyes look the same and if thats not enough he will run off the table that he plays on, bump into everything.
 
When I look at my dogs eyes you can plainly see that he's blind there's nothing there just blank orbs and Arlos eyes look the same and if thats not enough he will run off the table that he plays on, bump into everything.
To be fair, not blind hamsters do that too.
 
I guess I was expecting to see cloudy milky eyes like my little dog has. Arlo is adorable for sure:)
 
Our avatar bunny was blind, so we made sure everything in the room stays in the same spot. She'd spend about ten minutes wandering around when we let her out to make sure of things and then she'd run, binky and all the other normal things and only rarely bump into something. She was so comfy she'd sleep in the middle of the room.
 
Yes I know hamster eyes are like but Arlo has cloudy eyes it's tough to see in the pics, but they are cloudy.
 
One piece of good news is cloudy doesn't always mean blind! You would probably know with behavior, but a vet can tell you if it's lenticular sclerosis (eyes look cloudy, but basically the animal needs reading glasses- small details are blurry :p) or cataract (this is actual blindness).
 
Yeah I thought of that because Ivy my bunny had that at one point but I took him to my vet and he said it's not that
 

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