# Bites when excited



## liana (Dec 4, 2013)

Hi guys, im writing on behalf of a member of my portugues rats forum, he cant speak english and seeing how no one knows how to help him i decided to ask you guys, I know allot of you have experience with biting rats and I really want to help the guy, he sounds desperate.
Here is what I know:
He has two male rats,they are 4 months old, he got them from a breeder and has been with him for 2 months. one of them bites, when he is in his cage and the guy puts his hand in he doesnt bite, he lets him pick him up, pet him etc. Its when he lets him out for play/free time is when the rat bites, he will attack hands, arms and feet, twice has made the guy bleed. He bites and doesnt stop until is back in the cage. This doesnt start straight after being let out its only when he gets hyper and excited.
He is now scared to let him out of the cage :/ 
I really want to help him but i dont have any experience in aggressive rats.


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

The situation you describe really is only part of a big picture which we don't have. In fact out of cage biting isn't a common scenario at all. Rats the bite usually bite everywhere and are more likely to defend their cage or feel cornered therein and bite more often in the cage.

Not knowing all of the details, I'm going with a very cursive diagnosis that the rat in question was never socialized properly to begin with.

I'd start with the following thread and think in terms of extreme immersion.

http://www.ratforum.com/showthread.php?67442-Immersion-Training-The-Guide

Biting rats are not pets and should not be kept in a household. It's something that has to be fixed... Extreme immersion involves armoring up and engaging the offending rat in a bit of combat until mutual respect can be achieved and communication can be established. Once the rat accepts his human in the alpha (parental) roll he will stop biting. Once the rat stops biting then your friend can make progress with training and bonding with him.

Basically there are only two methods for dealing with biting rats... immersion or neutering. Both work... immersion works better when the problems are behavioral but also works with with hormonal rats, it just takes more time and effort. Neutering works with hormonally aggressive rats and the surgery itself can knock the wind out of a pushy rats sails... so it has an impact on behaviorally screwed up rats too.

I don't know what happens when you put the immersion thread through a translator program but it might give your friend a good start.

Best luck


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## zmashd (Dec 25, 2013)

I wouldn't be surprised if the rat is just not properly socialized outside the cage. 
(Maybe things have really changed, but most of what I have ever found in Portugal were either feeder breeders or inexperienced home breeders, and neither give their baby rats that much out of the cage time.)

Tell the guy to not be scared of the rat - if he is, and he gives up, it's not fair to the rat. He can try putting on some gloves (fleece gloves work great!) until he's more confident.
Also, if a rat likes to be in the cage, being put back in the cage is a reward - if the rat bites outside of the cage, he shouldn't put him in right away or the rat will see it as an easy way to get home. 
Instead, he should tell the rat a firm no (firm, not screaming) and poke it's nose or something, to throw him off his pace. And he should just stay there and repeat this until the rat stops biting.


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## liana (Dec 4, 2013)

Thanks! Ill tell him about immersion training.
Im not to sure about how the rat was handled my the breeder, if it was a feeder breeder or not.
Just hope he doesnt give up!


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## dr.zapp (Dec 24, 2012)

I had a rat that was aggressive during play, but not in the cage. I decided he must not realize I was in charge when he went out of the cage. Put on leather gloves, and get rough right back. I would flip him on his back and hold him down, or scruff his neck and pick him up whenever he would bite. Also do a lot of power grooming with your (gloved) hand on his back/neck area at random times during play to enforce that you are in charge. Don't put him back in the cage in response to biting.


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## relken0608 (Jul 11, 2013)

I'm going through something similar right now, Clark gives kisses when he's in the cage but when he gets happy and excited he'll come and bite me. I used to be able to flip him and say "no" and he'd give kisses and go off on his own. Now if i try to pin him, he'll just bite back and bite harder. I don't really have advice for him other than don't ignore this it's not going to fix itself, it's going to get worse. 

You're a nice friend to help him out in this way


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## saratherussiandog (Aug 9, 2013)

My Stella used to(I keep saying that everywhere but she really has opened up) be really uncomfortable outside the cage she would only stay by me on the bed, trying to get in my shirt or under the covers for protection. In the cage she was much nicer and actually outgoing and hyper but on the bed she would scent mark and be really timid, whereas Baby would explore. She was never aggressive though. I don't know if this helps but maybe the rat is just uncomfortable and the owner needs to get him used to the freerange place and/or provide some cover(igloo etc.) in the area. Most rats are fixable with strong experienced owners, but genetics and upbringing play a big role in a rat's behaviour. If you find a one day old wild rat, and manage to keep it alive, interacting with it for many hours a day, it still will behave like a wild rat, because it is. A poorly bred and brought up rat will be timid/aggresive most likely*, because it just is that. It came from this background, and there's sometimes nothing you can do in these cases. Hopefully, he just needs a little time and attention, though it will be hard.


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

Relken0608... I'm really starting to respect Clark. He's a pushy alpha kind of guy and you are a soft touch. I've told this story before, but I had a part wild girl that went native outside for 5 months. She chased away the feral cats, lived with my neighbor's pit bulls and tore up his hands, and he was recently retired delta forces. She was a stone cold killer with a short fuse... otherwise she was a sweet heart. She was not really aggressive, just lethal.

Somewhere between sinking her fangs into my palm... hitting the far wall and sliding down to the floor (involuntary reaction) she realized the folly of her ways and came back to apologize to me while I was still bleeding all over the floor. There was no pinning or debate... it was instant communication. She realized "I bite there and then the wall hits me and the floor comes up and whacks me again and I'm never going to do something that stupid again." 

It's really strange for me to give advise to be more assertive around your rats... my daughter pins our rats, bounces them, tosses them, spins them, shakes them, flips them and puts them down on the ground in sort of a bowling motion without actually bending down and that's how she plays with them. So around here, I keep repeating "Rats are not rag dolls!" and she thinks I'm being funny, because after the rats go splat... they bounce right back at her. 

I know there's a fine line between being fragile small animals and being built like iron that can be crossed easily when you are human size, and it's hard to explain the middle ground. But seriously, for their size rats are durable as heck and I've personally seen rats fall from over 6 feet up, hit concrete and keep going without missing a step. Again, not that I'm advocating rat abuse... But when your rats decide to play rough you play rough right back. When you tolerate biting you are setting a very bad precedent one that gets harder and harder to fix.

It's a simple association for a rat... really they are very smart and in my house it's if you bite daddy or the giant little girl, the entire house is going to fall on you. So you never, ever bite daddy or the little girl. Other than once with one rat, I've never even had to make the point with all of our other rats. Biting humans is just unthinkable. And I think, for the most part, that stems from the moment we adopt a rat we take assertive hands on leadership rolls.

That's not to say that our rats are afraid of us, they aren't or that we have lots of control over them, which we often don't or that they don't do whatever they want to, which they usually do... our rats are very self confident. But there are limits. And although I'll let my girls run off with a roll of toilet paper or even snip a wire now and then, biting is so far off the to do list I don't think any of my girls would do it in a dream.

Perhaps, and this helped someone once... get yourself a 3" horsehair paint brush, it's soft and won't hurt a rat, and if you see Clark about to bite you smack him with it (use the bristle end). That way you are less likely to get too carried away and still get your message across. A swipe with a thick oven mitt should have the same effect. You want to make sure Clark draws the mental association between going in for a bite and something unpleasant occurring immediately and consistently as a result of his error in judgment.

His thought process should be something like... "I'm going to push the human around then I'm going to be smacked by something unpleasant, so perhaps I'm not going to attack the human and not get smacked by something unpleasant so... I'm not going to attack the human... and not going to get smacked."

Best luck.


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