# Our first immersion



## melcab (Jan 29, 2014)

Went beautifully! I forgot to video :-( but they weren't exactly a difficult case. Even Cucumber, who is the shyer one, ended up crawling all over us by the end. At one point after a while I thought they were gonna curl up and go to sleep, but then a noise or a shift in position from one of us, however slight, had them up and excited again. They are my daughter's rats, but they seem to like me more. I think it's because I am less nervous with them and pay more attention to them. My daughter pays attention to them, but I pay more. I need to cut down ;-) at least until I get mine. They will most likely be living with hers when that happens though. After they were hopping all over me without hesitation but still being timid with my daughter they started checking her out more and then they started occasionally hopping on her. It was like they wanted to do us one at a time. Immerse with me, then immerse with her. I wanted to go until they were quite thoroughly hopping all over her, but then Pepper figured out how to jump to the top of the pen so my daughter got nervous. Tomorrow I'm going to make the walls of the pen a little taller and maybe I will stay outside the pen so they can bond with her more. I will leave it up to her. I'm glad I was in this time when Pepper started escaping though. He usually teaches Cucumber the bad habits. ;-) Will try to record tomorrow's session.


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

I suppose it never gets old for me. Each immersion brings back some of my fondest experiences. And you and your daughter will look back fondly on today, as the day you really began sharing a rewarding life together with your rats.

It's really odd how immersion works, but like I tell people once you sit down and reach out with an open mind and heart it just does... 

Depending on the age of your daughter, her rats actually will bond with her very strongly. Children are more playful than adults and rats like to play, somehow kids and rats just get each other... don't feel left out your rats will love you too... strangely my rats kind of relate to me as their dad and my daughter as their giant sister. Rats understand family, we call them packs, but in all reality rat packs are just extended families. Done successfully you will wind up with a single family composed of humans and rats with each finding it's own niche in your household matrix. 

Certainly it would be nice to have another video posted, but don't let it distract you from the experience. Immersion is something you share with your rats don't let a camera get between you and the fun. 

Congrats on your progress so far and I hope every day going forward will be just as rewarding for you and your new transpecies family.


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## melcab (Jan 29, 2014)

Thanks! It's actually me they are bonding with more, but they are HER rats. I just want her to "catch up" in the process. Maybe I could set up the camera on a tripod or something. Then I could "set it and forget it" while we play. That one video was helpful to me since I am a visual learner so I'd like to contribute to that.

Also for anyone reading the immersion guide and then looking for examples, immersion is NOT forced. (except for maybe the part where you get them out of the cage, but I'm guessing if you do it the long way you're going to have to remove them to clean cages several times before they're "ready", right?) It's hard to grock until you do it. Of course as I said, mine are not hard cases. I suspect those are more of a tough love situation. And at that point it's necessary. But I digress.
It was wonderful and fun and we'll probably be doing it all day today what with the snow.


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## melcab (Jan 29, 2014)

Well we did our second immersion session with my daughter and the rats inside the now higher walled playpen. I was outside giving her guidance and taking video. Pepper did make one jump but only got as high as the end of the old wall height where the duck tape line is. 
Here is video 1. I accidentally mislabeled them on youtube.






Video 2


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

That's actually a very nice video of what immersion really looks like. It might be a nice one to post onto the immersion guide thread. Your very charming daughter is basically engaging your rats with touch and play and lots of treats.... (maybe a few more treats than you need give, but they were very good rats and deserved them) and the rats are responding and she's replying with more skritches and rewards and hugs and the rats are really feeling the love. And by the way, I think both you and your daughter are feeling the love too.

Moreover, you and your daughter are becoming your rats parents, your daughter is calling her rats and they are responding, she's controlling the action and is becoming the ring leader or alpha. And you don't even notice it unless you stop to think about it.. It's all quite organic... no force involved. The bond you are building will be the basis for your ongoing relationship. Your rats will learn to trust you and follow you and run to you if they are afraid. They will really want to learn from you. From housebreaking, to teaching them tricks, to coming on command, to settling rat squabbles and right up to walking at heel with you at the park, everything you do will be based on the special relationship you build here in immersion.

It's not hard to see the communication already. Your daughter is responding to how her rats are behaving and she's beginning to understand them and it looks like the rats are starting to respond to her voice and even their names. You are treating your rats like intelligent animals. You are talking to them and working to teach them and your rats are showing you that they like and accept you. At this point it's still very basic, but you are interacting with your rats, you aren't observing them. You have opened the channels of communication.

From one parent to another, after immersion, little girls tend to get a little bit rowdy with their rats, it's a little disconcerting for us older folks, but the rats actually love roughhousing with kids... so as long as she doesn't get too carried away... let them have as much fun as they want. You have to enforce safety, but keep in mind rats are pretty tough little animals.

It all looks so simple on video. 19 pages of guide and it boils down to a grand play session... 

Some folks can get aggressive when they feel their status threatened. An administrator from another web site (that doesn't have immersion) came here to try and kill immersion before it spread to her site... And she did her best to try and scare people off... On her own site she can always delete the posts and lock the threads. I suppose she feels immersion is going to undermine her authority as a rat expert and bring her universe to a crushing end... It's a shame we couldn't help her, but after reading her comments and responding to them, I'm more than happy to stay far away from her site and I suspect that other folks that practice immersion might decide likewise for themselves. Her universe appears infinitely safe, even if it may eventually become infinitely lonely.

She came here when someone reported making progress during an immersion session on her site with a biting rat, after the counseling offered on that site against immersion the OP wound up neutering both her rats. That's a 200% failure rate! Neutering is both stressful for the rats involved, it incurs surgical risks and it's expensive. I'm thinking there won't be a grand exodus of people flocking to that site to share that kind of success. But who knows, at least there's an option.

As far as immersion goes, with over 20,000 reads and countless successful immersions and many aggressive and biting rats saved from being put to sleep we still haven't had a single reported zombie rat or zombie owner created in the process. It appears all of our brains remain safe. In fact, thanks to you, we now have another new video showing well adjusted rats joining a family happy to have them.

Kidding around aside... please consider posting your video to the guide and congratulations to you, your daughter and your rats on a fine job done well.


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## melcab (Jan 29, 2014)

Thanks! I will try to do that! Now that I have it on youtube it should be a breeze. It took me a few days to get the videos up because Photo bucket wasn't cooperating. On the third night, which I didn't film, but now I'm kicking myself for, I made a noise outside the pen that startled Pepper and he ran immediately to my daughter, turned around and looked up at me. It was so cute and heart warmingly obvious that he was looking to her for protection.

I have another question. They will climb all over us in the pen with no problems, but they still won't really come out of the cage onto us on their own. There is a lot of coaxing and then a lucky grab to get them out right now. Should we keep doing it that way, which is half gentle and half force, or should we lean more in either direction. I.E. go in and grab them or wait (possibly the whole session) at the open cage door for them to come out onto us fully?


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

I never got to wierded out over the cage thing. When I need my rats out of the cage I just take them out. Sometimes they are chewing the bars to get out and sometimes they are napping and don't want out. Sometimes they want out, but not up on me.. they want to dive straight for the floor and disappear. It's fun when they learn to come to you, but that takes time and it depends on what mood your rat is in. Children for example love to travel, but if their friend is playing outside when you are about to go to the airport they will often forsake a trip to Europe to go out and play jacks with their friend. Naturally once they get off the plane their friend is a distant memory... So, don't sweat the small stuff. As long as they are happy to be out with you, that's all that matters...

I will however tell you how this can go terribly wrong... Max naps afternoons, she has since she was a pup... and nothing will wake her. She crawls somewhere under the furniture and won't come out until it's time to wake up and play around 7:00 PM. So one day we dragged her out to the park and she ran straight up a thorny tree, found a high branch and curled up and went to sleep. Yup, there was a cat bird screaming at her, and we were throwing pine cones at her and she just closed her eyes and fell fast asleep. She refused to come down and as it was getting dark, I had to send my daughter up the thorny tree to drag her tail back to earth, where she ran right to another tree to find somewhere safe to finish her nap. Finally I let her sleep on the park bench next to me and when she woke up around an hour after dark, her normal time she had fun playing with my daughter and meeting other kids... So sometimes rats have their own agendas that have nothing to do with the reasons we think they want to stay in their cage... You might just be disturbing their nap time and a half hour later they will chew the bars to get to you.

It's always good to be sensitive to your rats needs, just like it's good to listen to your daughters concerns... but when you have got to get to the 90% off Prada and Jimmy Chou shoe sale and you only have 10 minutes left before you miss it, I'm thinking your going to give your daughter every opportunity to explain why she doesn't want to come while you are in the car and on your way...

Now when we traveled with Fuzzy Rat, we would wake her 15 minutes before we left, so she could scratch, yawn, drink water, eat and go potty before we hit the road... I'd tell her we are going out and jingle my keys, which she knew meant to get ready to travel. And after going outside almost every day of the summer, she knew the drill. Your rats will get used to a routine too in time.


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## melcab (Jan 29, 2014)

My daughter went in with the rats herself today. I think Pepper is starting to learn his name already. He runs over to you when you call him...sometimes directly, sometimes by way of some interesting smell "over there". Cucumber will probably need to be trained more purposefully on this. At any rate, by the end of the session they were climbing up and down her shoulders. So yay!


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

Immersion evolves into training... as you and your daughter spend more time with your rats and teach them what you expect of them and learn what they want from you they will learn to come when called and the kinds of games you like to play and they will become more and more competent as they get litter trained and if all goes well they will become family pets then family members... Some rats chew wires, just about all of them steal and no food will ever be safe if left where they can reach it. 

So yay!


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## melcab (Jan 29, 2014)

So we took the rats out to show them off to my sister in law. They rode around on our shoulders. It was great!


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## melcab (Jan 29, 2014)

For some reason on this forum I can't paste text while on my tablet which I suspect is what's making it not work. :-\ I'll try again when I can get to an actual desktop.


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

Not too long ago you invited a couple of tiny alien creatures with really sharp teeth into your home. They didn't know you, you didn't know them. You had no clue what to expect from each other.

Now they are getting to know your whole family and together you are changing hearts and minds... And I'm betting there's a whole lot of communication going on and perhaps a whole lot of inter-species affection going both ways...

Just like children your rats will grow to be more competent and independent. The very best is still ahead. Enjoy these days and every day you get with your rats. Their lives are so short. Almost before you know it, they will become some of your daughter's favorite childhood memories and perhaps some of your fondest memories too.


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## melcab (Jan 29, 2014)

I'm going to try this again now that I'm on an actual computer. 



















Et, voila?


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## ratty_milkshake (Feb 24, 2014)

melcab said:


> My daughter went in with the rats herself today. I think Pepper is starting to learn his name already. He runs over to you when you call him...sometimes directly, sometimes by way of some interesting smell "over there". Cucumber will probably need to be trained more purposefully on this. At any rate, by the end of the session they were climbing up and down her shoulders. So yay!


This makes me so happy! I am going to try immersion with my two 6month old girls on the weekend and hope it goes half as well as yours did! How old are your daughter's rats?

Also RatDaddy i know i saw and introduction link of yours somewhere but cant find it now? Getting 2 more girls in 2 weeks and would love to get some pointers.

xx


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

I don't recall ever doing a separate thread on introductions, I do somewhat cover it in the immersion guide. Basically after I feel good about how immersion has gone and I've got the kind of bond I like to feel with a new rat then I bring in the rat or rats I have and expand the party staying very hands on throughout. The new rat is already in join pack mode and your preexisting rat already look towards you for leadership so immersion can flow into introductions pretty seamlessly. Naturally this can become quite a marathon session. 

And don't get me wrong, you are still going to get boxing, and chasing and squeaking it's just you are going to be able to manage the situation with your voice and hands (oven gloves or towels if necessary). In the end your rats should end up grooming each other.... so you don't entirely stop the action, the rats have to go through what they need to do, you just manage the calamity.

Remember with girls, you never introduce older rats to pups under about 8 weeks old or you're likely to wind up with bloodshed.


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## ratty_milkshake (Feb 24, 2014)

yeah its upsetting to me when people discredit something without giving it a chance & focussing just on the 'bad side'. I can totally see how it would work so i dont know why people react like this when all anybody wants to do is help the ratties to be happier.


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

Please pardon my digression into personal vanity and for the following ramble, but I was sitting with Amelia (Fuzzy Rat's pet rat and roomie) this morning and she's not doing so well... and it made me think back to earlier times when we shared our home and our lives together... and I suppose I couldn't keep myself from typing as I reminisced about the life we shared and perhaps... if a rat can have a legacy... I suppose that was on my mind too... as were some of the discourteous things people have said about Fuzzy Rat and the lessons from her life... I suppose those looking for useful information could skip the rest of this post...



I was blessed to have known, and lived with and be loved by a truly amazing animal. She insisted on being a family member... Fuzzy Rat was intelligent and loving and special in so many ways... She changed the way I fundamentally saw rats and inspired immersion theory... She changed our lives and touched hundreds of hearts in her short lifetime as a true shoulder rat and as a best friend.

Immersion is easy to understand once you get that rats aren't small dumb animals that can only learn a few simple tricks... Rats can understand you and communicate with you... They can think and they can feel and they can learn and they can want to belong to your family and they can actually love you...

Some people just don't get it, or they just refuse to understand... For those who do understand, immersion makes sense from the first paragraph. Other folks try immersion and somewhere during the process it all begins to fall into place as they bond with their own rats. 
All I've ever done is share what I learned from Fuzzy Rat and other rats I've lived with, worked with or observed, I never set out to prove anything to anyone... 

I've been flamed and insulted for rescuing Fuzzy Rat from a feeder bin, for raising her as a true shoulder rat and for teaching immersion based very much on her life.... 

Fuzzy Rat lived an amazing life, her life inspires me to treat our current rats as family members too and perhaps has inspired other rat owners to be better friends to their rats and give their rats better lives too.. Immersion has brought hundreds if not thousands of humans and rats closer and even extreme immersion has saved rat's lives...

No one has a rat that was ever less likely to succeed than Fuzzy Rat, she was born at some commercial rat farm and was adopted into a home, to a little girl that probably should have gotten a dog... And from day one she was challenged to live a life that seemed impossible for any small animal, but she survived and she thrived and she proved just how competent and special rats can be. 

You see, I can't be insulted any more or mislead by so called experts who try to deny immersion's success... I was there. I knew the real Fuzzy Rat. Before I introduced immersion for the first time to anyone, I knew how well it works and what kind of a special relationships it can build. And everybody that's formed their own special bonds with their own rats through immersion and anyone that's fixed a biting rat through extreme immersion isn't confused either. They have re-lived the same special experience and created the very same special bonds we have in our home with their own special and wonderful rats.

Immersions have been done all over the world, some in ways barely recognizable from the first ones, but following the simple theory of communication between two sentient beings and the successes have been undeniable. 

You see, some people can't see rats as competent, intelligent and emotional beings. They can't accept that their rats actually love them and want to communicate with them. They can't get past behavior modification training and a relationship based on rewards or punishment. I feel sorry for their rats... but... if they can't accept our basic understanding of who our rats are, they can't grasp immersion and I'm sure we all look like crazy people to them. They may not be able to understand or deny our results... but that won't stop them from writing mean things about immersion, about myself, about Fuzzy Rat and about everyone that's had great success with immersion. Everything we do undermines their credibility, every success immersion has challenges their status as experts and they are most likely starting to feel alone and left behind...

So to those who prefer to hang on to the past... I'd like to say... with no disrespect intended... It's OK if you think the world is flat, that the sun revolves around the earth, and that rats are just dumb animals, just be good to your rats and we don't have to agree otherwise to be friends... It's a big world and there's room for multiple opinions... 

Just a few short years ago... I met a tiny 3 week old mismarked rat pup trying to be noticed in a feeder bin clawing her way over all of the other rat pups into my daughter's hand despite being put back 3 times in an obscure pet shop in NJ... since then, there have been vast numbers of successful immersions and now I hear that there are people way off in South Africa expressing negative opinions on the lessons learned from the life of one Fuzzy Rat... C'mon folks, lighten up... it's really pretty funny if you think about it... Big time so called rat experts have thrown the entire weight of their credibility into a mortal combat to discredit a pudgy little defenseless feeder rat... and immersion continues to grow and spread despite their best efforts... rat experts versus actual rat, it's comical when you think about it...

From my perspective at the eye of the storm, things are calm, rats are leading better lives, people are having better rat partnership experiences and every day more people do more immersions successfully and THEY inspire even more people to build better relationships with their rats through immersion theory. And I suspect that just maybe with more happy rat parents, more people will be inspired to adopt rats of their own and more rats will find good forever homes... 

Fuzzy Rat is just a cherished and loving memory now, her rat friend Amelia is sick and reaching the end of her life too, her successor Max is a competent and confident true shoulder rat and our lives, those of us who knew Fuzzy Rat and those who learned from her, have been inspired for the better... and I'm proud to have known the precocious pup, the intrepid explorer and the affectionate old girl that didn't ever give up and insisted on being understood, taking on every challenge and overcoming every obstacle she encountered. I've got nothing prove, and Fuzzy Rat's work is done and she is at rest, but I still feel gratified whenever someone finds the lessons from her life useful. It's really so very simple... you adopt a rat and it will improve your life... if someone doesn't get it, that's their loss not ours. 
Those of us who share loving relationships with amazing, intelligent and emotional rats are blessed, and if that makes someone else unhappy, they can always try it our way and be blessed too.

End of rant... and feeling a little better having rambled... it's likely safe to read the following most likely more useful posts.


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