Unexpected death of young hamster

Question
Hello

My daughter has had her hamster for approx. 6 weeks and until today it was a happy lively friendly little hamster.  This afternoon she became lethargic and stopped eating dried food (although still accepted a grape).  We didn't think too much of thinking she was just a bit sleepy.  However on going back to her at around 8pm we found her half in and half out of her house cold and dead.  I checked and her whiskers weren't twitching and we tried putting her in a sock and rubbing her to warm her up just in case she had got too cold but to no avail.  My daughter is devasted and can't understand why and I have no answers for her as I don't know either.  We can only think of two causes as we have looked after her well and read up extensively on what hamsters can and cant eat.  We inadvertantly gave her a little bit of almond the day before yesterday as it was in some muesli.  As soon as we realised there was almond in it we retrieved it so don't think she can have eaten much but she may have had some.  And yesterday our dog got into the room where the cage was kept and jumped up at the cage knocking it and frightening Milly (the hamster).  We can't think of any other cause - could either of these two things have caused Millys death, she looked in good health - her poo was normal and she showed no symptoms of anything until a couple of hours before she died.  I would love to be able to reassure my daughter that she didn't kill her hamster as she is really upset and is convinced it must have been something she did.

I know I am rambling a bit and apologise but its 2.30am and I have been trying to resucitate the hamster for hours now and am a bit tired.

Thanks for reading this

Kirsten

Answer
It is not something your daughter could have done. The muesli is very close to their regular diet. It is possible the dog could have caused trauma to Milly; in fact, I would suggest this as the most likely cause of death. In fact, my own hamster died the day after a friend's son squished him into a tiny plastic toy spaceship. Sometimes smaller animals don't respond as well to trauma as humans or larger animals. My last thought is and illness. Sometimes hamsters become ill extremely fast and die within the same day. Wet tail disease is the most common illness with hamsters as they can be passed by dogs, cats, pigs, and reptiles, but Milly's feces were normal so this could not have been her cause of death.