Will our daughter’s pet have a good run on the hamster wheel of life?

QMy eight-year-old daughter looks after her 18-month-old male golden hamster very well without my help. However, she is worrying about how long he will live and what diseases he might be prone to.

AInformation on the lifespan of hamsters has mainly been about laboratory-kept hamsters, not pets. Up until now, data from the pet-owning public has been scarce.

But a recent publication from the Royal Veterinary College has produced up-to-date information based on the clinical records of thousands of hamsters treated in UK veterinary clinics.

For Syrian (golden) hamsters, the average life span was two years for males, with a range of one year to just under 2.4 years, and a few live even longer.

With continued good care, therefore, your daughter’s hamster could live another six months or more.

For those that survive to old age (being dropped is a common problem in young hamsters) there are a number of possible diseases.

Hamsters, being a prey species, tend to show few outward signs of disease until it is advanced. Common problems are pneumonia, intestinal diseases, eye diseases, overgrown teeth and nails, skin problems, and various cancers.

Many of these are associated with a decline of the immune system in old age.

Young children are often surprisingly grown up when their pet nears the end of its life, especially if they know the facts, and have been forewarned.

Avoid terms like “they don’t live long”, because two years plus for a hamster is a long life, often made possible by good care such as your daughter’s.

Q

Our five-year-old rescue neutered male cat was showing reluctance to go out, so we took him to the vet for a check-up. We were shocked when our vet diagnosed an inherited degeneration of the retina resulting in blindness. However, she reassured us that blind cats often adapt very well. Can you tell me more?

AThe retina at the back of the eye transmits images from the lens to the brain. There are many diseases that can cause retinal degeneration, and your vet will have arrived at her diagnosis by a process of elimination.

Some drugs can cause damage, and a deficiency of thiamine is another known cause, although highly unlikely in a cat fed on good quality commercial food. There are a number of painful diseases such as glaucoma (increased pressure within the eye) and inflammatory conditions that damage the retina.

Your vet has diagnosed progressive retinal atrophy, a non-painful genetic disease inherited from both parents. It usually affects a variety of pedigree cats (you don’t mention if your cat is one of these) but it has also been seen in non-pedigree cats occasionally.

Poor night vision is the first sign and complete blindness follows, usually by age five.

Affected cats have widely dilated pupils that don’t respond to light and have retinal abnormalities picked up in an examination with an ophthalmoscope. There is no treatment but cats do amazingly well if kept inside.

It can be hard to believe that they are blind, as they seemingly easily memorise where all the furniture is located in the house.