# I'm scared of my rat



## temaz (Sep 18, 2012)

My new pet rat Mia has progressed to being quite agressive. I'm actually scared. I tried the imersion thing, but only for two hours cos I got scared as she began to get worse.. I had my gloves on and every time I went near her she squeeked and bit me.. even holding on and not letting go. She draws blood. I'm actually scared of her.. and I think me being scared makes her worse. I really don't know what to do. What is the best thing to do?


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## Mitsy (Apr 8, 2013)

Um one thing is you shouldn't give up on immersion but you don't have to do it all at once either. Also rats can sense what your feeling maybe if you just sit calmly in the room and try to give her treats but don't force her to come to you let her come to you on her own she may learn on her own that you won't hurt her. Imagine you in her position a big giant going near you with weird covered hands to pick you up. I think the one thing you should not do is give up on her. I would try sitting in the same area as her with treats and slowly working with her and maybe she will eventually come to you and take a treat then maybe she might finally relies you aren't a big scary giant and come closer and so on till she's curled up on you or climbing you.


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## temaz (Sep 18, 2012)

Thanks for replying  I've been trying for another few hours with her. She climbed on my shoulders and ran down my arm, she really likes running all over me. I just can't touch her or pick her up yet because she still bites. I've never had a rat like this before so this is why I'm really confused as to what I should do.. but yes I shall try immersion again tomorrow and this time not give up. I really need to stop my nerves getting the better of me.


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## Mitsy (Apr 8, 2013)

It happens to everyone haha  I wouldnt touch my brothers hedgehog haha and good luck  also I'm sure as she gets more comfortable with you that she will let you pick her up. How are you picking her up? It could be how your going to pick her up that scares her.


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## temaz (Sep 18, 2012)

haha my friend has a hedgehog.. i never knew they could be pets until recently. What I do is put both my hands under her to lift her.. sort of cupping my hands i guess you'd say, but she squeeks and jumps.. so I have to keep trying until eventually, after a lot of squeeking and biting she runs up my arm. I don't wanna just pick her up by putting my hands around her cos i know she'll bite me hard if i do that. When she bites should I make a squeeking sound? I read some where about that... I mean what should I do when she bites?


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## LightningWolf (Jun 8, 2012)

Typically if a rat does something they're not suppose to I tell them No. Squeaking can help but squeaks to rats can mean more then one thing.

Are you having to get her out of the cage to put her in a room for immersion?


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## temaz (Sep 18, 2012)

Yeah I tried squeeking and that didn't seem to work.. so I tried shouting 'no' but again that didn't seem to work.. i suppose itm ight take a while.. and yeah I take her out of her cage for immersion... which takes a while. I take the cage to the bathroom. Put the cage in the bath and open it.. then wait for her to come out. I really have no idea what else to do.. because as I say I've always had rats that were quite easy and tame. It didn't take long to bond with them.


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## LightningWolf (Jun 8, 2012)

Can't help you much with that No and Squeaking then. Most rats though learn what it means over time.

It might be better to do what I prefer to do and has worked really well for me (It's really a form of trust training though if you think about it). Don't move the cage (that might be upsetting her) and just leave the door(s) open. Sit by the cage and let her come out on her own. If she comes up to you, pet her, play with her, ect. If she wants to play (go "spazzy" as I call it, basically if she starts popcorning or spazing out) make her go "spazzy" (Rub her head or back). If she wants to climb the cage, let her. If she wants to jump onto your lap then let her as well. If she wants to hide, then let her do that too. With her it will probably help her warm up to you quicker and save your hands from being bitten. Once she warms up to you, Start picking her up and putting her on your lap or shoulder (where ever she seems to want to go the most) when your still by the cage. That might help her become comfortable with being picked up.

Oh also, it's a good idea to have treats on you so they have something to search for to encourage them to come on out and you can reward good behavior as well. For the stubborn ones I also recommend having a book or Ipad to read/play on.

Our three baby boys for the last few months have been a bit skittish, but mainly didn't like being taken out of their cage. I decided instead of trying all of these other methods (actual trust training, immersion, ect) that actually caused me for a while to Forget how I socialized all my other boys, I went back to how I always do it and basically made myself forget all these other methods for a few days. about 2 days later and they love coming out of their cage and being with people. Now the issue is keeping them in so they don't go running through the house. 

Like Immersion it doesn't work for everyone, but if she doesn't let you take her out of her cage and your moving her cage that could be making her upset more then anything. As I've said, it's not Immersion, it's more of my version of Trust training, but if you want, it's worth a shot.

Curious, how have you socialized your rats in the pass? (Think about what you did on day 1 to maybe day 5 when you got them).


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

Your rat is biting you for one of three reasons... 

First she's defending itself, in which case she might be afraid of you... Still you can't work on building a relationship with a rat that's biting you. NO.. don't be confused, you can't build a relationship with a biting rat! You don't build trust with an animal that's attacking you, never ever! It looks something like this... "see here's my finger, see I won't hurt you"... CHOMP! then again.... "see here's my finger, see I won't hurt you".... CHOMP! Rats never seem to tire of the irony involved. 

Second is that she's dominating you. In this event, things usually started off on the wrong foot and actually got worse since you have had her. Your rat starts pushing you and you back down, perhaps you even squeak softly in submission, then you don't do what it wants again and it gets all puffy... then it nips you and finally when it gets frustrated with your disrespect it bites you. And when that works it cuts straight to the chase and bites again and again whenever you pick it up or reach into it's cage or do anything it doesn't like. It's once size fits all rat communication. It bites and you understand.

The third option is that she has a medical problem like a brain tumor or blindness, only a vet can help with medical problems. And blind rats shouldn't bite once they know who you are.

As to issues one and two... First we stop the biting! Biting rats are not pets. In fact you shouldn't keep them even as exhibit animals. A biting rat is making a life and death decision and if you are the human it's your rats life that's at risk. 

Over the years, I've read lots of reasons that rats might bite, everything from estrogen in your perfume to moon phases has been proposed. The fact is that rats are very intelligent animals and for 99.99% of the cases it's option one two or three. And even if your rat hates your perfume or the soap you use, it can't just be allowed to bite you after you bathe or when you dress up to go out or during the dark of the moon.

How do you stop the biting if you don't have a medical problem and your rat isn't deranged? Get your oven mitts, big soft paint brush and towel out and make her understand what a very bad idea biting is. Rats are very smart and are not going to pick a battle they are going to lose over and over again. Now this is the kind of immersion that goes under the category of "extreme immersion" and all of the other rules are suspended until your rat stops attacking you or biting you. Don't try to hurt your rat, and don't punish it for being bad. Just communicate in the most humane way possible that that biting is not an option. Shout NO BITING and then (compassionately and with love in your heart) swat her with the towel, paintbrush or glove, or flip her backwards, do it immediately when she strikes at you or as she's about to. Restrain her with the towel if necessary and don't stop until she backs down and gives up. 

To be very clear:

There is a very fine line between negative reinforcement in which you are communicating with your rat and rat abuse, as in where you are punishing your rat for doing something wrong.

Biting rats eventually have to be put down, fixing her behavior is saving her life. You are doing it out of love for your rat, not out of frustration or anger.

This kind of treatment is ONLY used in extreme immersions with biting rats. This is not acceptable under any other circumstances during immersion or otherwise.

The negative response to the biting behavior must be immediate and severe enough to have an impact. If your rat can't associate your behavior with her biting you, your wasting your energy and confusing your rat.

And as soon as your rat backs down and stops attacking or biting you go back to normal civilized methods of communication immediately.

So in theory... if your rat was dominating you, you have adjusted her attitude and she's likely to just outright show you respect after she realizes your relationship with her has been redefined. She might roll over and let you skritch her belly or get all friendly. Sometimes this sudden change in behavior freaks us humans out.. but rats don't hold grudges. In her mind you are her new alpha and she's joining your pack and she may actually be very happy to belong with someone as strong and protective as yourself. Be ready for the turn about and be prepared to show her love and affection and acceptance. If this happens skip to the final phase of immersion where you reward her submission with lots of love treats skritches and play. Don't rush off to celebrate, spend lots more time bonding to reinforce the new relationship and show your rat she is accepted in your pack.

Now if she's afraid of you and defending herself.. she's still going to be afraid of you and you still have a long way to go in immersion. But you have fixed the one problem that was going to get her put to sleep. Some might argue that making a rat possibly more afraid of you is going backwards... but there is no backwards for a biting rat. The degree to which you can possibly make things worse is the difference between a plane crash where everyone is killed and a crash where everyone is killed and the tires explode. If your rat was biting out of fear, it's now very likely going to be somewhat more apprehensive and more shy than it was. But you can work with apprehensive and shy! Once it isn't attacking you you can start to show it affection, you can give her treats and you can reward her good behaviors. You can show her how much you love her. In other words you can engage her like you would any other rat and communicate with her and build a normal healthy alpha human - subordinate rat pack bond.

A footnote of importance... once you start immersion with a biting rat you can't stop until the biting phase is over. This is a win or lose confrontation. (For your rat it's life or death.) If you lose, the next time you try, it will be even harder to stop the biting. Every time your rat wins and defeats you, she will get bolder and you will have to redouble your effort the next session. Rats may stop doing things that don't work pretty quickly, but they really dig in on things that work for them. Make sure your schedule is clear before you do this kind of immersion. Some folks have reported that their rats stopped biting almost as soon as they 
fought back, other people have reported some knock down drag out battles with rats that launched more and more desperate and vicious attacks to the point of exhaustion. In at least one case during a very long combat the rat gave up the war mid attack and just rolled over to get it's belly skritched, leaving it's human with gloves on one hand and a towel in the other and a rat rolled over napping on their lap. These things can end very abruptly. Be ready to change your tactics as soon as your rat does.

Personally from what you wrote that your rat has "progressed to being quite aggressive" you are dealing with a rat that's gone alpha and is trying to dominate you, so you are running very little risk of winding up with an overly shy rat. She might defer to you as her alpha, but don't expect her ever to be too submissive. She might even start to get pushy again which as a good and loving alpha you will have to nip in the bud.

Extreme immersions are special case situations. They are the socialization method of last resort for biting rats only. They involve actual physical dangers to the humans that do them and certain unpleasant experiences for the rats involved. For the most part, if you consider that what's going on is a subordinate attacking their alpha for dominance, in a real pack the rat alpha is more than likely to be a lot more severe than any human doing immersion is going to be. I don't recommend extreme immersions for liability reasons alone, but there have been several very successful ones by humans that put their own welfare below the love they feel for their rats. (As in... if you do it and get bit, them's the chances you took.. no one told you to do it! If your health insurance doesn't cover your injuries you are on your own. Always wear protective clothes and eye wear if you have some.) 

Keep in mind immersion still ends with you communicating and bonding with your rat not when you stop getting bit. Stopping the biting is only step one, then you can refer to the guide and follow the rest of the procedure as you would with a normal rat.

Remember, again... extreme immersions are intended to save rats lives, and they are hazardous, this isn't a sport or a challenge. You don't go out and catch a wild rat to see if you can extreme immerse it! If you feel you can't make it through the process, don't start. And lastly, immersion is only the beginning, after you successfully immerse your rat, you will have to work with it every day to reinforce your relationship, especially with male rats. Male rats often develop elevated hormones that will take some time to normalize even after immersion so you might have to take measures to respond to aggression immediately if it starts coming back. 

Best luck.


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## temaz (Sep 18, 2012)

Thanks for your help guys  'lightningwolf' you're probably right about not moving the cage, I'll stop doing that.The way I used to socialize my rats before was to just pick them up every day and play with them, stroke them etc and they just became more comfortable.. it didn't take that long.. but with this rat I wanted to try immersion because she's quite difficult. Today I tried what you said 'Rat Daddy' after a while she stopped biting but instead when I touch her she lays on her side and then squeeks. I've seen that behaviour before with my other rats when they used to play fight. I don't know if this is a good sign, but i felt i was making progress. Instead of attacking me she bites me in a different way. She'll be walking around then she'll sit on me and as she walks past my arm, she'll randomly nibble it out of no where and it's quite hard. I don't really know what that means. The only trouble is she's stopped biting me... but I later found that she'll bite other people. My firend came round and she bit him extremely hard, there was blood pouring down his arm. Is it possible to have a tame rat that is only nice to you? haha I don't know I'd rather she was friendly to everyone... anyway I will read your post on immersion again and try to learn more about it and see what i can do. Thanks for your help


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

SUPER SUCCESS!!!!

When she lays on her side she is asking for your acceptance! She is waiting for you to accept her into your pack. You welcome her by skritching her belly and fawning all over her. Giving her hugs and treats and doing everything in your power to make her feel loved. She's nibbling at you (possibly grooming you) to show you love and get your attention now, so give it to her. She has communicated that she is ready to join your pack and now she's waiting for your invitation. ANSWER HER, INVITE HER IN!

Theory: There has long been a wrong interpretation of dominant rats grooming their subordinates. It has wrongly been construed as the alpha showing dominance. Rather the alpha shows it's power and prestige by fighting and then shows it's love and acceptance by grooming the new pack member. Once your rat submits, you show it how much you love it an accept it into your pack. This is communication the way your rat understands it.


I realize it's a little spooky to watch your rat go from attacking you to rolling over and submitting to demanding hugs and skritches. I mean would humans ever do that? Sure they would! Most couples do what after they have a bad fight? They share affection. 

As to biting strangers, yes, your rat may very well bite strangers even though she's bonded with you. We had a part wild rat that shredded our neighbor's hand when he tried to pick her up. She was perfectly safe and docile with my 5 year old daughter and myself. But she would not permit anyone else to handle her without a formal introduction first.

A formal introduction went as follows. First we would introduce another human to our rat... They would have to talk to her, if she liked their voice she would lean forward in my hands and the stranger could put his or her fingers where our part wild rat could sniff them. Then she would lower her head and the stranger could pet her or skritch her. It was a very precise ceremony and had to be repeated exactly with each and every person she met. And I once took her out and there was a line of kids who each in turn went through the process. She liked all of them and everyone had a great time, even though I was really rather nervous. I might note, I never let anybody hold her she could be vicious and flipped from charming and inquisitive to psycho killer in a split second.

So just because your rat accepts you, it may still not like human beings. You are it's alpha and a member of it's pack strangers are not. Once you have finished immersion and your rat loves and respects you, you MAY be able to do supervised introductions with her to other humans... if you do try it the way our rat did it... But you may never be able to let a stranger hold her.

So she's stopped biting you, this is great, now she won't have to be put down. This is a very very good thing. Now you have to welcome her into your pack, this should not take too long. But don't short hand the process either! Rats usually finish immersion by sleeping together in a ball. You are obviously not going to nap in her cage and she's not going to sleep with you so plan to spend as long as you possibly can playing and snuggling with your new pack member. Show her in no uncertain terms that she is loved, accepted and cherished... Now you have to be the loving and caring alpha, not the big bad one. She changed, now you change.

Lastly, as the alpha you can make introductions to your pack members and your subordinate rats should accept the people you tell them are friends. But rats don't treat strange rats as friends so they don't necessarily accept strange humans either. When I took both my shoulder rat and my part wild rat out, I would tell people they could meet Fuzzy Rat, but Fluffy bites. Strangely some people took that as a challenge and we did the formal introductions and things worked out, but for the most part when you tell someone that your rat bites, they are smart enough to keep their fingers away. 

Last thing... once you finalize immersion with the rat bonding ritual you will have to still do daily play sessions to reinforce your bond. No alpha rat stays in power if it isn't there. And no immersion will survive you not being there either. Proceed with daily play sessions as you did with your other more normal rats, except spend even more time with this one. 

Like I wrote before immersion doesn't break your rats spirit or make it a zombie rat, it just bonds her to you as her alpha. She will be a member of your pack with a very individual personality.

Congratulations on your success so far.


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## temaz (Sep 18, 2012)

Thanks for your help  she seems a lot happier already. I've been able to have a normal playtime with her. The only concern now is introducing her to other rats.. I have no idea how she'll be, but we'll see. Thanks for all the information, I've enjoyed reading it. I keep refering back to it, to make sure I'm doing it all right.


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

Temaz,

Extreme immersions have been the subject of much contention lately. They rely on some very brave rat owners putting the welfare of their rats above their own safety. You have saved your rats life and should feel very proud of yourself and your rat. And most everyone that's gone through extreme immersion reports that their rat is happier for it. You have put your girl's world in order for her. You are her protector and leader now and she feels that she belongs somewhere and that's what rats really want most.

Immersion introductions involve you doing the introductions hands on with your rats. You get right in the middle and referee. You are the one and only alpha and you basically tell all of your rats that they are all your pack members and that they have to play nice. Subordinate rats follow their alphas lead. So you lead them to be together. 

Yes there will be fighting, that's normal and necessary for the bonding process, kind of what you just went through with immersion... it's a similar process except rat on rat. The difference is that now your role has changed, rather than being a combatant, you are a referee and a leader.

Again, it can take a while and get a little hairy, so keep your towel and oven mitts handy, but remember your rats are very smart and you are communicating with them and listening to them, so you will know when to let them squabble and when to cut in and restore order. Remember when one rolls over and is getting preened, don't interrupt unless it is somehow being harmed... usually, that's just rats rewarding each other for being nice... and that's the final phase of the bonding ritual.

Best luck.


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## xbexidabestx (Jun 17, 2013)

Hi there

My rats havent been biters as such, ive had 2 nips in total off the biggest fella. They nibble my fingers gently all the time but this is still nerve racking for some people. Its just a thought, but have u tried putting yogurt on the ends of your fingers? This taught my rats to lick me instead of biting when they come up to me. I cant say if this will work for definate BUT its worth a go? U might get chomped on once, but she should theoretically start licking it off of you.

Is she a lone rat? It might be worth getting her a young cage mate whom you can "tame" from a young age, she might learn off the other rat that you are OK!! 

My older 2 were really shy, when i got my 2 younger boys who are fascinated with me, they learnt from them that I am awesome 

Good luck!!


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## Mball77 (Jul 3, 2013)

I did both immersion and passive training. The quickest thing that worked for me was putting babyfood/yogert on my fingers after they started coming out of the cage on their own and letting them lick it off. There is a balance of giving them space and time to explore and then trying to play with them. Best introductions are at the door. I got some nibbles (being they now associated my hands with tasty) but soon gave them chicken and very strong smelling solid treats. I never held onto them that long, covered them in a dishtowel once or twice and kept picking them up and giving them food before and right after. (do not do this if you got bit during the session) Also...try leaving something that smells like you in her cage. Mind you it's been two months and they just started to let me pet them regularly. I learned without regular hand contact without food just makes you a giant food dispenser to them.


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

Rats really don't bite humans by accident, and only rarely out of fear. Mostly, when rats attack it's because they are asserting their dominance over you. I realize this seems somewhat odd, but rats will attack cats and other large animals. The best defense is a good offense. And to a rat you are just another large animal for them to push around. Biting is way different than nipping.

A rat that might nip a little might be figuring out where the food ends and where the finger starts and it almost never draws blood... When you have been rat bit, you know it! Usually it's very painful, sometimes the rat will rip out flesh and you are going to bleed a lot.

Usually the reason a rat starts biting is because it's suffering from alpha confusion. It thinks it's in charge. The cure is to restore your position as the alpha and rats don't bite their alphas. And in the rare even that it is biting out of fear, you still have to bond with your rat so it sees you as a fellow pack member and not a predator.

Although nipping isn't biting it still should always be discouraged because it can be a sign of things getting worse.


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