'Alfred the Adventurer' hamster rescued from winter cold by Edmonton woman

A chance encounter last week has an Edmontonian putting the call out for anyone who is missing a hamster that ran away.

Tamara Mazur was parking her vehicle outside her home last Sunday when she saw a tiny orange ball of fluff running by.

"We thought, that doesn't look quite right," Mazur recounted. "We chased it down and found a little hamster."

"Immediately, [we thought] where did this guy come from?"

She brought him to her home to find that the hamster had been outside for a while, with his paws being red and raw.

"It looked like he had been running around for awhile," Mazur told CTV News Edmonton. "So we put him in our bathtub; we didn't really have anything for him."

Alfred the Adventurer poses for a photo (Supplied).

The hamster, now called Alfred, has been with Mazur, who is looking to try and reconnect him with his true home. She has put up posters and taken to social media to try and see if anyone is missing him.

"The next day, we went around and knocked on a few neighbours' doors, but no one seemed to be missing a hamster," she added. "We had a lot of people interested and wanting to help, but nobody seems to be missing him."

Posters put up seeking the owners of Alfred the Adventurer (Supplied).

Mazur is no stranger to taking in stray pets and providing them with a warm place to stay. She has rescued animals before and has been a foster parent to several dogs over the past eight years through the Greater Edmonton Animal Rescue Society (GEARS).

"A lot of rescues in the city don't take in small animals, so I figured, well, I might as well make him a home here," she explained.

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Alfred now has a new themed enclosure. Mazur found the trend of hamster-scaping online, where owners create elaborate homes for their little furry friends.

Alfred the Adventurer in his new enclosure (Supplied).

Mazur says she had a hamster that looked very similar to Alfred growing up. She's glad she has a new addition to her family, for the time being.

"He's really sweet," Mazur added. "He doesn't bite. So I wonder, maybe he does have a home out there where they are missing him. They took good care of him."

With files from CTV News Edmonton's Jessica Robb