Chmurka & Bułeczka (+ MESSAGE TO THE WORLD)

Today Jade C criticized me as a hamster owner. It saddens me so very much...

And makes me angry, too, since most of the accusations are simply: not true, not fair or very, very, and pointlessly forced.

She did a great research, found my photos which she thinks show that I am not treating my hamsters right, and produced a detailed critique.
GO HERE and scroll down:
www.flickr.com/photos/chmurka/2514477588

(I am sorry Jade I am making this public, but you were the first one to make it all public, instead of sending me an email, wich would be a much nicer way to sort it out. I do appreciate your comments, or rather your intentions, yet I think that it's all, so to say, too personal and that you're taking it much too far..)

She says that I:
- feed my hamsters with bad food: chocolate, human junk food, crisps, etc.
- that I put my hamsters' life to danger by taking them outdoodrs (just for a "few pretty photos")
- that I maltreat my hamsters, lil Pompon to be precise.

In short, I am a retarded 6 year who treats hamsters like toys, and who is doing everything to shorten my hamsters' lives...

I've never said I am a good hamster owner.
That's the first thing I say when someone asks me for advice. Anyone who asked me for advice will confirm that.
I am not a ROLE MODEL.
NOT AT ALL.
I am not a hamster expert. I can only tell you how to take a good photo and how to tame your hamster (and even here, my opinions differ from what most people say)
So, PLEASE don't treat me as a role model or an expert.
Just DON'T.
If you need info, search the internet for good sites.
Or contact flickr specialists like Locomom, SIberianemerald, Vikkinsnowangel, Seattle Roll etc.
And if you want to have a hamster owner role model, there is Springhawk.

I think my hamsters are happy with me.
I think my hamsters like me.
My photoshoots don't hurt them.
None of my hamsters has ever bitten me out of anger or fear.
I do play with them a lot. I do lots of different things with them and to them, some of them odd and not really normal, but none of those things hurt them.
I do let them run freely around my house, under control.
I do take them outside for walks.
I want to make their lives interesting and happy and fun.

I take Chmurka outside often so that she can have the time of her life - not to take a "few pretty photos". That part really offended me.

I do know a hamster can spend all of its life sitting in a cage / tank, running in the wheel, biting cage bars. Never exposed to any danger. Neither happy nor unhappy. And you can sit there, glad your hamster will never have contact with bacteria or dirt so it will have a long life. Yeah...

I don't think hamsters are beings from Mars and that a bacteria in the grass or on the kitchen floor will kill your hamster. I am not killing my hamsters.

(What's the real problem with hamsters? More and more chemicals in food which causes cancer in hamsters.Rotten food which can cause batcterial infection. Etc.)

The most surprising, and saddest thing is, this all comes from Jade C, who's like one of my first flickr contacts.. I enjoy her photos very much, and I thought it's the other way round too. My photos of my hams with cookies or outdoors have been around FOR AGES...
That's why it's so trange. All of a sudden, she writes me this kind of stuff, and gives me advice in such a patronising way, in public.
I think she KNOWS what I went through ecently... all of my hamsters being sick; Chmurka's tumor and surgery; Szarotka's illness and then death... Countless visits to the vet. Brutally being forced to be aware of all the things a hamster owner should be aware of. I guess you can tell that, right?

So, Jade digging out a very old photo of my dearest Szarotka holding a piece of chocolate... and telling me: that's bad, is just.... pffff, just very nasty.
And unexpected.
And unfair.
And unnecessary.

Sorry for this.
Enjoy the photos.