# Having trouble getting my rats to trust/like me.



## liana (Dec 4, 2013)

I have had my boys for a month now and they are 2 months old. They were feeder rats so they didnt get much attention as babies. When I got them they were scared of me but interested in exploring me.
Ive tried trust training but got stuck on the "lick food of my hand" they wouldnt let me pet them nor pick them up.
Now they climb all over me, lick my hands and face, fall asleep on me, take food from me and eat food off my hands, Totoro lets me pet him for a short time but Mojo runs if my hand goes near him, also, if they are on me or near me and I move a little they run and hide.
I did try immersion training but I dont think I did it very well and I gave up after they kept hiding behind me.
I think ill try Immersion training again but I wanted to ask a few questions:
Is my bed a good place to do it? I know alot of people do it in their bathroom but with 5 people living here its not a good idea for me. 
Should I try it with one rat at a time? I was doing it with both of them but they kept running to each other for safety.
Is it okay if there are noises in the same room? My boyfriend is on the pc all the time playing games so there is a bit of noise, I dont know if it would distract them or scare them.
Should I be constantly going after them, petting them and touching them or give them breaks? I didnt quite understand that part of the training.

Any other tips?

I really just would like them to be less jumpy around me, not to freak out if my hand goes near them or touches them. Im fine with them not being crazy about me (hopefully some day ) but for now I just want them to be comfortable with me.


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

Actually it sounds like you have made quite a bit of progress, really frightened rats don't sleep on you or choose to hide from _you_ behind _your_ back...lol.

Actually getting touched and picked up may be a little disturbing to rats that never had it as pups... and as long as you aren't getting bit just go for it, they will hop off and run and as soon as you can, just scoop them again and again and play with them... I use the term _engage_ in immersion because every rat needs to be engaged differently, depending on what issues you are working on. Aggressive rats sometimes need a little tough love, terrified rats need calm and slow engagement but just about every rat needs contact of some kind. We can't speak rat, so the best we can do to carry the conversation is to touch them and as humans we use our hands... If you were a rat you would climb all over them and sniff their tail and brux and box with them... As a human you scoop, tickle, pet, talk softly, hand box or whatever to engage them and show them you are the friendly Grizzly bear in the room and that hand contact is OK and fun.

If your rats are really getting stressed, sure, give them a break, if they are preen thinking let them do it undisturbed. The biggest problem I face in teaching immersion is people who will just sit there waiting for something to happen on it's own... In one 8 hour immersion the human just sat in one corner of the room while the rat sat in the other for nearly 7 hours... As I recall the rat finally got so bored of waiting it crossed the floor to meet the human first, within an hour rat and human were friends and it was over. I'd like to think... if the human crossed the floor first, about 7 hours sooner that immersion might have taken less than half the time. Remember you are an intelligent, emotional, metacognative and interactive being you are capable of communication on many levels... now get out there and tell your rats!

Immersion isn't forced anything.. so I like rats to have some running room, depending on the bed that might become difficult... as to your boyfriend, try to get him engaged too, immersion can be fun for the entire family. Some gamers can be distracting other's not so much, but again you are an intelligent, emotional interactive being.. you should be able to get his attention away from his PC for a few hours if need be... right??? 

As to one at a time or groups of rats... I only adopt one rat at a time so that's the way I do it, but plenty of people have done group immersions. (With rats that bite, it's always done one at a time for safety reasons.) Otherwise it depends on you more than the rat(s). Some people are great multi-taskers and can handle 6 rats at a time and give each lots of attention, other folks work best one on one and focus best on one thing. If you are the group chaos type, they you do both at once, even if it takes longer, it will be more fun for you and the rats. If you are the deep focus type with two rats one will distract you and you won't get anything accomplished.

Immersion is kind of a playful dance... you engage your rat, it reacts and you respond. You scoop it and it jumps away and you chase it and give it a scritch and it runs towards you and you scoop it again and it jumps and after a while it becomes a game of scooping, jumping, skritching running, chasing and climbing all over you... 

People get so worried that they might do something wrong so they don't do anything at all, when in all reality the worst thing you can do is nothing. Pretend to be another rat, or just be yourself, try to be joyful and be engaging; your rats are intelligent, emotional, interactive and metacognative just like you. If a great big Grizzly bear wanted to make friends with you and carry you around in a nice way, how should he go about it? And you can bet if he doesn't move for a long time, you are going to get more and more worried rather than more comfortable. Engage brain then engage rats and don't be afraid to reach out and touch someone small and furry.


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## liana (Dec 4, 2013)

Yeah, I was kinda waiting for them to magically love me.
I tried the whole scooping thing with mojo today, Totoro was asleep, and it when well. He would run away when i went to scoop him up but then when i put him back down he would run back to me.
I would like my Boyfriend to become more involved with the rats but he is a bit.. scared of them, when they sniff his hands he jumps worrying that theyll bite him (which they have never done) and if they start to climb him he asks me to take them off, making them not really like him, I once put Mojo on his shoulder and Mojo jumped back to me, almost falling on the floor.
I was thinking first to get them to trust me so then they see that this big jumpy "bear" that I hang out with isnt so bad because i trust him. I dunno.

By the way.. what does skritching mean? :/ Not too sure how to do that lol
Thanks for the help ratdaddy! I told people about your training to my other portugues rat forum, but they were against it, I was trying to help a boy with an aggressive rat but the rest convinced him that the way i was saying was bad for rats. He ended up giving the rat back to the breeder.


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

I'm a strong believer in humans taking the lead and being hands on with their rats, rats love and respect humans that initiate relationships and interaction. Today I had Max on me for half and hour while she desperately tried to escape me in every possible way... after a while she started bruxing, not she didn't stop trying to escape but every time she almost escaped she let me catch her again... she wasn't running away, it was just a crazy game for her.

Skritching is like scratching and petting, usually done with one or a couple of fingers....

With regards to the boy... Unfortunately we can't help everyone... My methods might be new and different but they work. Over 20,000 reads and not a single rat or human has been hurt. Perhaps we can't fix every rat, but we have fixed many of them... I find it frustrating that the same people that criticize immersion have no better answers. If they knew so much better why couldn't they fix the boy's rat? If there was something that worked better, I would not have written immersion. And if there is a method that works better... I would happily use it. 

So they criticize immersion, and with nothing better to offer, the boy has to give his rat back to the breeder. Don't blame yourself, you tried to help and that was a very nice thing you did.


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## liana (Dec 4, 2013)

Ah ok I think I understand what skritching is now ^^
Training with my boys is going well, yesterday I had family over who wanted to see the rats, they were playing on the bed when the people came in to see them, they got scared and ran to me to hide, I guess they see me as "safety" now  
They let me scoop them up and always come back to me, they are still a bit jumpy and scare easily.

All they suggested to the boy was to give him lots of treats, I tried to explain to them that a rat that is wanting to bite you most likely wont want to take a treat from you.
Anyway, Im just glad that Im apart of various rat forums so I can learn and get opinions from lots of people .


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

Part of my learning experience was watching my daughter, who insists I tell people that she is now 8 years old, and Fuzzy Rat teach each other. They gave each other snuggles and hugs and even chased each other around the public playground with other kids involved.... It remains a wonder to me that Fuzzy Rat never got killed. Several times the kids crashed together on top of her and she would jump out from under the pile up she caused, unharmed. They played together for hours... I don't think Fuzzy Rat was hardly ever in her cage. There really never were any treats at all, Fuzzy Rat ate everything we did, as a matter of fact Fuzzy Rat ate dinner on our dinner table with us, taking her dinner off our plates. And my table now has a glass cover because Fuzzy Rat would try and steal a whole steak or pork chop and drag it across my wife's table cloth. So I covered the table cloth in glass. 

As a psychology major in college, long ago, I was honestly amazed. Rats in labs didn't act like that! I've trained dogs that didn't act like that! So at first I just stepped back and observed how natural and organic the bonding process was. It was like making friends between humans. And then all on her own, the tiny rodent started coming to me to make friends. I wasn't looking for a pet or a rat friend. Fuzzy Rat was for my little girl, but whenever she wasn't busy playing with my little girl she would hang out with me... And she eventually got me hooked too. Basically, she just kept engaging me until I realized she was an intelligent little being. So in all honesty, my first immersion was Fuzzy Rat engaging me until I came around. 

I'm not in love with "trust training"... but with shy and withdrawn rats it does work. It is a method that actually has a track record of success with certain rats. It is useless with biting or aggressive rats, in fact it can make them worse. But the more I look into the "positive reinforcement only" concept the more I am convinced it is the worst of all worlds.

Operand conditioning and behavior modification were never intended as bonding models! When we used them in the lab, we weren't trying to make friends with the lab rats. We were trying to get them to run mazes or jump from one side of a cage to another. All rats were picked up by their tails and most tried to bite us. It was really simple, hungry rats ran mazes to get food pellets and they jumped when they knew they would be shocked. That's it! That's what operand conditioning was intended to do and it worked very well. You could even pervert the process so children would try to get punished so they could get a reward associated with the punishment and casino slot machines that gave occasional rewards could be adjusted to take away all of someone's money. Operand conditioning and behavior modification were effective and potentially dangerous teaching tools.

My wife is a teacher, and the positive reinforcement thing actually caught on in education too... All the teachers started using 'treat jars' several years ago as teaching aids... Last year they started being eliminated because they didn't actually make kids want to learn on their own. In fact when you took the treats away kids hated learning even more!

Since the advent of operand conditioning and likely even before, animal trainers have been using treats and shocks to train animals. And this worked amazingly well with seeing eye dogs for example... But before the seeing eye training facility takes in dogs, the dogs spent their early life with families to bond with humans. I adopted a seeing eye dog that failed out of the program. Yes it was amazingly skilled at crossing the road, but it didn't like people. In fact it had become very afraid of people. And was very hard for me to "fix". In fact it lived a very solitary life hardly ever engaging with us and it never played. It was the huge German shepherd that lived under the kitchen table and roamed the neighborhood all night on it's own. As it foraged for it's own food at night, so we didn't have to feed it and it only slept under our table all day, it was a very easy dog to care for. It was about as much of a pet as the squirrel living in our back yard. 

When I took Fuzzy Rat to the circus, the professional animal trainers there were very impressed with her. They had never seen a trained rat in a crowd before. I was surprised to find out that the trained horses actually just travel with their trainers for two years before they ever perform. Yes, professional animal trainers bond first, then they train their animals. And BTW elephants are not afraid of rats or mice. Fuzzy Rat however was fascinated by camels.

Somehow someone perverted behavior modification into "positive reinforcement only" training. This is a perversion because operand conditioning doesn't recognize that the subject is a thinking creature.  Operand conditioning assumes that both humans and animals simply react to stimuli. And yes, humans are complicated, but never the less it assumes that we don't really think most of the time... we react. We seek rewards and avoid pain. In operand conditioning there is nothing ethically wrong with negative reinforcement. It is a means to an end and can only be judged by how effective it is. Now... only giving treats or only giving positive reinforcement is only half of a proven training process. And as such is only half effective. Instead of the carrot and stick method, it's the carrot only method. And even if positive reinforcement works as a training tool, it isn't a bonding tool or a socialization method. Let me repeat that...

Positive reinforcement only is a training tool, NOT a socialization or bonding method!!! Giving treats does not make friends. If the allies dropped candy on the Germans and the Japanese during World War II instead of bombs, we would all be speaking German or Japanese now. And I might add that after bombing both nations into oblivion... they are our friends now anyway. What works with tiny rats even works globally!

The positive reinforcement only training model should never be confused with a socialization method or bonding practice. It denies both you and your rat the dignity of being considered intelligent and basically it doesn't work. It's an inhumane practice that has been sanitized and misapplied. Like pyramid power and magic crystals it's a fad and does much more harm than good. Yes, after you have bonded with your rat you can use treats to teach them tricks, but giving candy to a bear won't make him like you.. it will however get him to tear your campsite apart for more candy...

Immersion socialization builds bonds, and establishes communication and develops pack order in your mixed rat and human family. It gets rats to love and trust you and to run to you for protection. Yes, it's a little more complicated to understand, but it does exactly what it's supposed to do. It's what Fuzzy Rat, an actual rat, used to win me over. 

Lastly... look at the evidence... immersion has fixed aggressive and biting rats and helped people like yourself build great friendships with your own rats. You have a relationship based on friendship, communication, trust and you are your rat's protector and parent (alpha). Your rats are becoming part of your family and not because they are looking for treats, they actually depend on your for leadership and protection, like Fuzzy Rat loved and depended on us your rats are developing the same relationship with you. 

I introduced immersion in baby steps in 2011 - 2012 and posted the guide in 2013 and there are already so many success stories and there have been 20,000 reads. If you follow the positive reinforcement threads, count how many end in neuters or worse... 

I'm so sorry to rant... but after researching this positive only reinforcement nonsense, I find this practice one of the biggest dangers to freshly adopted fancy rats since people started keeping pet snakes. I hate seeing rats victimized in such a way.

I might as well give you a fair warning if you go to different sites... some people who like to be regarded as experts are very deeply invested in positive only reinforcement tactics. They are afraid of immersion or any other method that actually work because it might undermine their "authority". When challenged they can get *very* aggressive. They have no basis of fact to defend their approach so will often resort to flaming people instead. Be careful around them when trying to help new rat owners or you might make enemies very quickly.

Some rats are by nature shy and jumpy, especially those that have had bad experiences with humans. They are small and we are huge so it's normal for some to be afraid of strangers... and it's great that yours run to you. Over time you will introduce your rats to your family and they will develop a special relationship too.

Rats are amazing little beings that will share their love with you, because I'm certain, they find you amazing too and they really want you to love and protect them. They want to belong to your family. Otherwise, I'm really happy to hear how well your rats are doing. 

Keep up the great work!


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## liana (Dec 4, 2013)

wow. I can see how passionate about rats and immersion you are. And writing! 
I think I might copy paste this to my portugues rat forum. I think the reason they dont like immersion is because they dont fully understand it.
Im loving my experience with my rats and bonding with them.
Thanks for all your help!


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## RattyDaddy (Dec 8, 2013)

Rat Daddy I feel like you and I could sit at a bar and talk for hours about rat behavior LOL. I love your posts

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## Ergala (Jan 23, 2014)

I'm with you Rattydaddy! I want to sit down and learn from him! I'm so happy to find a site that has members that doesn't view rats as just pets but as little sentient beings. My 4 year old used to bite when he was 1.5 all the time....I didn't go and give him away  Tempting I know lol!


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## RattyDaddy (Dec 8, 2013)

Ergala said:


> I'm with you Rattydaddy! I want to sit down and learn from him! I'm so happy to find a site that has members that doesn't view rats as just pets but as little sentient beings. My 4 year old used to bite when he was 1.5 all the time....I didn't go and give him away  Tempting I know lol!


Holy crap you have a 4 year old rat???

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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

Honestly, I do hope you are right. I believe that immersion makes sense to people with an open mind and with open eyes. It makes sense to people that can see their rats as intelligent small beings, but it surprises me how many people don't get it or don't want to understand...

We've even been accused of torturing and brainwashing our rats and creating zombie rats. However popular zombie rats might become in modern fiction, so far it's never happened. 20,000 reads and not a single zombie rat or owner. In fact your results are both typical and wonderful. Immersed rats often turn out to be heart rats and some even become true shoulder rats. 

And yes, I'm passionate about rats. I went to the pet shop to buy my daughter who was only 5 years old the most "disposable" pet I could find. I didn't think she would stay interested for long and an animal couldn't put up with the kind of rough handling a child would put it through. A feeder rat was already sentenced to death, it had nothing to lose, and at $2.49 either did I... But I was in store for a great cosmic joke. The least attractive rat pup in the feeder bin kept crawling back to my daughter and she insisted on adopting that odd, awkward little rat. The receipt read "Fuzzy Rat (larger feeder pup).... $2.49" And rather than giving the little pup a proper name of it's own, we just called her Fuzzy Rat... And right from the first day, she was special, she survived and thrived and she made every effort to be noticed and played with and reach out to us, and despite my best efforts she melted my heart and changed my mind. Right to the day of her passing she challenged us to understand her and she understood us and she was both amazing and wonderful. Our other rats are amazing an wonderful too...

I believe that most people can have great relationships with their rats too. I've learned that rats are very big animals in small packages. And I was shocked to find that there were so many "rat experts" on the internet that didn't get it. I mean how can you keep rats and not notice how loving and brilliant they are? 

When I first introduced Fuzzy Rat on another web site, I was told that rats were not dogs... and they couldn't be real pets and the rat I described absolutely couldn't exist. Imagine someone trying to convince you your rat doesn't exist because it didn't fit their idea of what rats are. In fact I got insulted and flamed by the "rat experts" just because I suggested that rats could be more than pocket pets.

So yes, I'm passionate about people seeing their rats as more than dumb animals and building bonds of love and trust and communication with them. I really want everyone to have the kind of relationship we had with Fuzzy Rat. It's the foundation of immersion theory, and based on the lessons learned from Fuzzy Rat and other real life amazing rats. And when I see practices that don't work or worse yet hurt rats that are based on rats being dumb animals like operand conditioning's illegitimate stepchild "positive reinforcement only socialization" it really drives me crazy. Yes, you can teach a rat a trick with treats, but you can't build a relationship of love and trust based on rat snacks!

Again, just beware of those "rat experts" that feel challenged by anything new. Mostly, they don't want to be proven wrong. And some can get really nasty when you challenge their "authority".

And you are very welcome... I'm glad I could help... As you are finding out for yourself, once you build that special relationship with your rats you just want to share it with other people that haven't found it yet. I'm certain you and your rats have an amazing and wondrous life ahead of you. Challenge them and yourself and watch your relationship blossom... 

It's just that simple...


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## Ergala (Jan 23, 2014)

RattyDaddy said:


> Holy crap you have a 4 year old rat???
> 
> Sent from Petguide.com Free App


No my 4 year old son LOL! I was using an example of reasons people choose to simply get rid of their pets without trying to work through the problem  You don't rehome your child because of behavior issues, why on earth would you rehome your pet without trying to work through them?


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## liana (Dec 4, 2013)

Although I have read on here someone saying they had a 4 year old rat.. or was it 5? cant remember!

I think if rat daddy had a seminar on rat behavior allot of people would turn up, I live in portugal so I couldnt see it.. maybe a youtube channel?  haha


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## Ergala (Jan 23, 2014)

If he does a youtube channel I would totally subscribe. I think he should do a Skype seminar!


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## nanashi7 (Jun 5, 2013)

I am still awaiting the children's book on ratty adventures. 

Rat Daddy, I was thinking more about immersion and I think the problem is it is so common sense. Humans have a tendency to gravitate towards the complex and convoluted. For example, it struck me that every time I attempted to negotiate to a feral animal I did something akin to "immersion".
Let's use the big bully stray tom cat from my childhood. He was a mean sucker and would stalk the people and pets on my farm. His paws were about the size of my palm an some of us figured a stray must've mated with our local mountain cat population to get such a huge thing - stood to my knee! Well, I always had a thing for cats having never been allowed to own one since I was allergic. So when he got locked in our garage by accident, I sat down where he hunkered in and brought some tuna. I talked meaninglessly with him for many hours, tossing clumps of tuna at him. On the second can, five hours in he came out for a bit. I praised him and tested boundaries as he tested mine until I had a doll out of him. Kimba and I were very close after that and he would wait outside my door in the morning for me to go to school and at night for me to finish my chores. 


Just about any animal I've meet I've always come down face to face with and sweet talked an treated and yes unfortunately punished when necessary. I was the wild child because I was always befriending the local strays. I think with rats my mistake came from the lovely technological advances! For the first time, being a child of the early nineties, I got to research my pet before I owned them. And I think that filled my head with great knowledge as well as complex expectations. So when I was told to just play with them it was like...no, it has to be more than that. They're not gonna like me that way!

But after all, how do kids meet?


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## Ergala (Jan 23, 2014)

Nanashi I'm the same way, drove my mother crazy! I'd bring everything home with me....strays and wild animals alike. If it was injured it came home with me. If it had lost its way it came home with me. My husband calls me the animal whisperer ha ha! People get annoyed with me because "it's just an animal Liz!".....well so are we. I look at cats, dogs, rats, hamsters, birds, people.....I see beings with feelings, thoughts....I don't see something that is more deserving than the other. Do I eat meat? Yes I do, just because I believe animals deserve respect and love doesn't mean I am vegan. But I do eat meat that is locally raised and slaughtered and I am a huge fan of Temple Grandin. There is a food chain for a reason, but I believe every single living thing deserves respect, just because something is food for something else doesn't mean it doesn't deserve a good quality of life for its time here. Same with rats and mice, rats are exceptionally smart little creatures but they do serve another purpose other than companions for us. We all know what it is. But that is not a topic for this forum 

I don't like to think of my girls and my kitties as pets...to me that turns them into personal property. I don't like to think of them as objects that I own. They are family members and I love them dearly. My husband and children love them as well. We almost lost our 13 year old kitty Marrah last year. I've had her since she was 8 weeks old. Thankfully she pulled through and we have had to do a lot of changes in her diet since then. She has wicked food allergies and a bad string addiction (eating it). I wasn't ready to let her go. A lot of people would have just put her to sleep when they saw the vet bill. I couldn't do that, the prognosis was very good so we followed through with the treatment and she is now fine and dandy. It is my job to protect them and love them, I think of myself as their guardians. I chose this, as I chose to become a mother and a wife. It wasn't forced on me, I chose this path so I take it quite seriously. I just wish all animal guardians took it as seriously. I sound weird don't I.


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## nanashi7 (Jun 5, 2013)

Not that weird. I usually fumble over my relation to my animals. Well, they're companions but so much more. They're family but more than that. Yes, they must listen and they're a financial obligation but they're mine -- and I mean that lovingly, in the same way I call my boyfriend mine. They're not my kid, they are this elevated and special status that is beyond words. My dog is the one who saved me from a myriad of bad decisions and suicide. She came with me every time a parent or guardian kicked me out. Serenity and I are so bonded that everyone tells me it is goin to be a disaster when she goes and she best live forever. My birds who don't even like me that much mean the world when we sit and whistle at each other or Blueberry needs to be louder than everyone in the room. And of course my rats, which have a bedroom for them now and are the first line of query from most people - "how're your rats? And you."

I form pretty quick and deep attachments to most animals I meet. I was always in fights protecting them as a kid woefully. But I never regret it -- I'm the weirdo who would let personal relations lax in favor of my animals, such as the potential date who found himself free- who kept screaming at my dog because she was abused and witnesses abuse so never trusts a male. My boyfriend lives in terror of me taking strays as I tend to not want to rehome them once I found them, like the dog I almost hit when he ran out on the street. He came right to me afterwards and I sat there loving him in the middle of this busy four lane road haha. But my baby girl Serenity doesn't like energetic things so Buddy went to someone who regularly updates me. 


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## Ergala (Jan 23, 2014)

I just spent the last half hour with the girls cage open wide while I loved them up. Artemis finally came over and offered me a kiss freely. A kiss freely offered from a very timid rat is a treasure to keep forever  I totally get you on the animal relationships. Marrah and I are extremely close. To the point where my husband will sleep on the couch if she is on his side of the bed when he comes home from work at 3 am and she is obviously sound asleep and we're snuggled together. He knows her years are numbered and that I will have a very very hard time when she is gone. When I had knee surgery we nick named her the Warden. The moment I was laying down she would plant herself on my chest and absolutely refuse to move. If I managed to get up she'd wake up Ben and sound the alarm. I wasn't supposed to be moving around very much at all but I was extremely restless and stubborn. And determined. I now hear my husband saying good night to the rats when he gets home from work and I hear him play fetch with Marrah if she's up (yes my cat plays fetch). It's pretty awesome how sweet he is to them. He also loves up Tardis even though Tardis is probably being a turd. Our kids love our animals as well and when one passes away they mourn them just as deeply as they mourn the passing of a human family member. We all do. But death comes and we've accepted that so we cherish each moment we have with each other.


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## ratty_milkshake (Feb 24, 2014)

I think Ergala is reffering to a child 


I did a 2hour immersion with my tame (but not completely trusting) ratties last night and it went good. 

Just got in the bathtub with both of them with a jar of mashed butternut and a cup of coffee for me 

*Here's a very uninteresting play-by-play:*

Talked to them the whole time, petting them, picking them up and kissing them and giving them butternut on a spoon everytime they climbed on me by themselves. This went on for about an hour and a half. They became more comfortable with me and would climb on me and explore all over. They did still go sit under my legs to "hide" (they were not fearful, i think they just wanted to chill in a sheltered area)

I had the lights off with 2 candles burning but i'm pretty sure i heard some bruxing..yay! They were very calm the whole time and preened themselves lots (heard that this means they are thinking and that you should not interrupt them). So i saw this as a very good thing. Seun was probably "washing" himself for about 5mins at a time.

After the hour and half i got out, i called them to the edge of the bath and they came and sat still waiting for me to pick them up - yay again! Then i put on my robe and they got on my shoulder. they then climbed in my robe and chilled in there for 15mins. (this has not happened for about 4months so i am very happy that they wanted to be close to me again even though they could get off onto the couch) 

I think it went well, obviously it could go much better - i would have loved some kisses 

I'm gonna do this every night this week, they are such sweethearts i can wait to spend extra quality time with them!

Also excited for my two new girls arriving on Saturday! Going to call the PEW girl Jelly and the agouti one Nori or Koko. Love them already!


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