Tomie figured out how to open the cage!

Freela

Freela

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Our pigs live in a large pet store rabbit cage- the door has a pressure latch at the top and opens downward like a little drawbridge. Yesterday I heard a weird noise and turned around to find Tomie wandering around the room... I put her back in the cage only to see her stretch up as tall as possible to press on the pressure latch on the cage with her nose and open it again! So now we have the gate secured with a twist tie so the pigs can't leave at will! I honestly can't believe that Tomie figured this out, she is usually (meant very affectionately) not the pig you would think to figure things out logically!

To her credit, Misa, normally the naughty one, stayed in the cage both times looking puzzled. She was thinking, "Umm... Tomie, I don't think you're supposed to be out there!"
 
Freela said:
Our pigs live in a large pet store rabbit cage- the door has a pressure latch at the top and opens downward like a little drawbridge. Yesterday I heard a weird noise and turned around to find Tomie wandering around the room... I put her back in the cage only to see her stretch up as tall as possible to press on the pressure latch on the cage with her nose and open it again! So now we have the gate secured with a twist tie so the pigs can't leave at will! I honestly can't believe that Tomie figured this out, she is usually (meant very affectionately) not the pig you would think to figure things out logically!

To her credit, Misa, normally the naughty one, stayed in the cage both times looking puzzled. She was thinking, "Umm... Tomie, I don't think you're supposed to be out there!"
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Clever Tomie! :love:

Piggies can relly surprise us, can't they? They are not stupid at all.

It was however my blind Mischief who worked out that she could topple a hay bag leaning against the wall by wiggling between the bag and the wall, sniff out the opening, crawl in and go to sleep inside the bag - considering she was a brindle (brown and black mottled) aby - it was not quite easy to spot her, either.
She pulled that one the first time while I was away on a family visit and gave my hub and his mother one of the worst half hours of their lives...

It was not my clever, well-named Minx, who was into everything else (including climbing into the fridge and jumping up the stairs, levering out toilet brushes in the upstairs bathroom to read the 'human newsletter'), who never caught on how exactly Missy did it. I put out a near empty hay bag just to have it on record before making sure that the hay bags were firmly out of reach.

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She opened it again today when it was time for snacks... she has figured out just where to push with her nose. Fortunately the backup twist-tie we have on it kept her contained, otherwise she could just wander off at any time of day or night!
 
They are so clever when they want to be. My first piggy was in a similar enclosure and was able to open the pressure latch as well. We closed it with a lock that had a key and she just used the lock to rattle and make noise to get our attention! It can give you a fright though!
 
My hamster Bob was missing one morning when I went to give her some breakfast and the door at the top of the cage was open. I found her in the cupboard in the food bag quite happily gorging herself. Well she went straight back in the cage and a padlock went on the door. Then I stood back and watched her climb up the ladder to the mezzanine level of her cage, stand on her hind legs, grab hold of the door with her little front feet and rattle it until it unlatched itself. But the padlock was on it and she couldn't escape this time.
 
Betsy said:
My hamster Bob was missing one morning when I went to give her some breakfast and the door at the top of the cage was open. I found her in the cupboard in the food bag quite happily gorging herself. Well she went straight back in the cage and a padlock went on the door. Then I stood back and watched her climb up the ladder to the mezzanine level of her cage, stand on her hind legs, grab hold of the door with her little front feet and rattle it until it unlatched itself. But the padlock was on it and she couldn't escape this time.
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We've had a couple hamsters get loose before... Yuffie, one of our past hamsters, ate her way out of three bin cages over the first year we had her! But Tomie is definitely the first pig we've had escape!
 
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