# What to do, what to do.



## VictorianVanity (Mar 18, 2010)

So we recently just picked up a little hairless girl as company for Tali, and from the very beginning she was exceptionally timid. She flinched every time we even got near the cage, absolutely would not take treats or even eat ones left for her. But we were slowly working on trust training. Then the worst possible thing happened; during playtime Penelope got a fright, ran into a toy, which then fell off the bed with her in it. She was screaming she was so terrified, and bolted. Our room is in no way fully ratproofed, so this was a nightmare. She bit my fiance badly and eventually ended up in a space between our bathroom cabinets (which are in the room) and the wall. So, we left the cage out on the floor, left for a while, and came back to find her there, thank god. So while we've recovered her, she is even more terrified of us, and I'm a little stumped as to how to start over with trust training. She has no interest in taking food from us at all, doesn't even seem to like anything we've left for her. We don't know how to go about handling her because she has shown signs of being nippy; occasionally she'll put her teeth firmly on my finger if I'm doing something in the cage. Not hard enough to even necessarily hurt, but it's her way of saying back off. All she does is hide besides the short time it takes to get food and drag it back to her box or drink water. I'm just feeling a little stuck. Tali was a timid rat as well, but not nearly to this degree, and I don't really know where to start with Penelope.


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## VictorianVanity (Mar 18, 2010)

Smallest of victories. Penelope took a treat from me. She saw me giving Tali one and poked her nose out, so I offered her one. She took it, but it was so quick and snappy if she'd gotten my finger she would have drawn blood. /sigh I hate seeing her so very scared of us.


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## VictorianVanity (Mar 18, 2010)

I just picked up some baby food actually, and am going to try that out on her today. Last time we tried some yogurt she wouldn't take it, but we're going to take another stab at it. 

I was thinking about making a pouch as well, since I've been sewing recently, it's just very difficult to get her in and out of things once she's decided to hide in it. That's where the gloves would come in, I suppose.

We don't have a TV in the bedroom, but maybe I'll try a radio. I was going to bring their cage into the office with me this evening as well while I work on my sewing; the sewing machine can be a little loud but I can sit by them and talk to them while I do any hand-stitching. 

I know it's going to take time, it's just so very sad seeing her this way. She doesn't get play time or any snuggles or scritches. ]:


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## VictorianVanity (Mar 18, 2010)

A little over a week, which is why I'm not totally in pieces, it's just going much slower with her than it did with Tali. 

Once I can clear the puppies out of the office I'll bring the girls in, try and give them some treats, and get to work. We'll see how she feels after a while. I figure I'll go ahead and make a pouch; even if it doesn't work with her, Tali loves to be carried around and will have a fantastic time with it. Thank you for the advice.  I'm a very fussy rat mommy.


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## VictorianVanity (Mar 18, 2010)

Well, Penelope has started to take the occasional treat from us, but she still spends most of her time in her box. She did venture out a little last night while she was in the office with me, and I made a little bonding pouch, which she is actually in in my lap at the moment. She's nervous but she has let me rub behind an ear and she's poked her head out a couple times. It's coming slowly. :O

EDIT: After Penelope spent an hour or two in her little pouch in my lap, I put her back in with Tali and to my delight she didn't make a straight dive for her box as usual. She scampered around, climbed the bars, even came to the door wile it was open and I was scratching Tali's ears(didn't want me to touch her though). She ended up hanging out on her hammock for a while, even with me sitting right next to the cage. As long as I made no sudden movements she didn't seem to mind me too much. We still aren't comfortable picking her up without gloves and she still won't take food, but that was a drastic change from her normal behavior in such a short span. Thanks for suggesting the bonding pouch, it seems to be working for us the best so far.


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## Alexc844 (Sep 8, 2008)

VictorianVanity said:


> Smallest of victories. Penelope took a treat from me. She saw me giving Tali one and poked her nose out, so I offered her one. She took it, but it was so quick and snappy if she'd gotten my finger she would have drawn blood. /sigh I hate seeing her so very scared of us.


This is how my Double Rex, Kajri takes food. She isn't aggressive, she's just a pig.


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## vivianelizabeth (Feb 24, 2010)

Alexc844 said:


> VictorianVanity said:
> 
> 
> > Smallest of victories. Penelope took a treat from me. She saw me giving Tali one and poked her nose out, so I offered her one. She took it, but it was so quick and snappy if she'd gotten my finger she would have drawn blood. /sigh I hate seeing her so very scared of us.
> ...


HEHEHEHEHEHEHE.


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## VictorianVanity (Mar 18, 2010)

So, Penelope made a little progress and then went right back to being highly antisocial. She returned to hiding in her box, and when we put her in the bathtub to reintroduce her to her sister, she actually tried to leap out of it (and almost succeeded a couple times). We hope her being reunited with her sister Pickle will maybe help calm her nerves a little (and maybe she'll take after her, because Pickle's a sweetheart). I'm gonna stick with her, though. Unfortunately work a lot the next few days so I won't get to keep up the training, but after we'll go right back to it.


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## smilez_n_hugs (Apr 5, 2010)

A few tricks come to mind...
-if you have an old shirt that you have worn and not washed to it smells like you and that you don't care if it gets ruined you can place the shirt in the pleace she hides the most to get her used to your smell
-just place your hand in the cage, unmoving and let her come to you and get used to you, although this isn't always the best idea if she bites for no reason
-the down the shirt trick, put on 2 shirts and take your girl and put her in between the 2 shirts...I would reccomd starting slow, maybe try 10 mins first then slowly increase until she is comfortable
I hope you find at least one of those ideas helpful.


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## VictorianVanity (Mar 18, 2010)

Maybe we'll try putting an old T-shirt in. She actually seems to be moodier today than ever. :\ She just tried to bite me while I was trying to give her sister Pickle her medicine for her ear infection. I'm getting rather frustrated with her. We can't even handle her safely, even with gloves, because she tries to make a mad dash every time and usually comes way to close for comfort to getting out. She gets along with the other rats fine but when we're even just in the room she's incredibly on edge. I was hoping to see at least a little improvement by now, but she actually seems to be doing worse than ever.


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## VictorianVanity (Mar 18, 2010)

So luckily we found something Penelope will eat of a spoon. Her and her sister both are gaga for banana baby food. So we're going to start doing the spoon thing, having her come closer to us in the cage. Even with Pickle around she doesn't seem to be improving much. We also put in a shirt of my fiances he doesn't mind get renovated by our ratty girls. We took out everything else for them hide in so Penelope will burrow into it. Maybe this will help some. 

On a side note, Pickle (Penelope's sister) is doing incredibly well. Considering we've only had her for a few days and she's dealing with an ear infection, she's very comfortable with us. I'm looking forward to her becoming an incredibly good rattie.


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## Pip167 (Apr 7, 2010)

My little rattie Oliver was like Penelope, he was absolutely terrified at first. He's my first permanent rat so I was clueless and hadn't found this site yet. I just put him in a small carrying cage and carried him nearly everywhere with me. He got used to being held and responded incredibly well to treats and so much attention. I even got to take him to school. Once I got another Rat for him as a friend he improved ALOT. Now he's a very curious boy. I hope Pickle (love the name!) gets over her ear infection, it's good to hear she's responding well to you.


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## VictorianVanity (Mar 18, 2010)

Well, Penelope is still very frightful, but she's getting better. She's gotten to the point where she will take treats very nicely from us, no snapping anymore. She'll even lick baby food off the spoon, which is making it much easier to trust train her.

We can now even handle her with no gloves. She wasn't getting a whole lot of time out of the cage because it was so difficult to put her in and out of it. But after seeing Pickle and Tali go out for play time a few times, I think she got quite jealous and decided it was okay. We've started having playtime in the bathtub, because this makes it easier to contain her. She's still pretty timid during this time, but she will explore and even sniff at our fingers (without nipping!) so long as we don't make any sudden movements. We can pick her up to move her between her cage and the tub without need of gloves, and while she's very nervous when we handle her it is a vast improvement to her previous frantic attempts to escape our hands.

Last night she even came up to the cage door while it was open and let me stroke her back just a teensy bit. We still have a long way to go, and I imagine it'll be another month at least until she's truly comfortable with us, but we're starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel! 

On a side note, her sister Pickle is becoming a wonderful little ratty. She's comfortable with us stroking her and no longer seems intimidated by us. We even let her out on the bed with Tali and she snuggled up against me and took a nap. She's still a little nervous, but she's doing just fine. We just finished her first week of antibiotics, and while the head tilt hasn't gone away any, she doesn't seem to feel poorly. She still eats well, drinks lots of a water, and is active and playful. I've heard the head tilt may never go away even if the infection is gone? Maybe Pickle will always be our little lopsided sweety.


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## ArmyWife3409 (Apr 4, 2010)

Honestly, I just wanted to say that I really took a lot out of this - especially because of Disney being sick, I got discouraged... but your patience is making me feel better about sticking everything out... and I bet you anything all of this love you are putting in with Penelope will make her the sweetest, most trusting rat... Don't forget, you get back what you put in! =)


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## VictorianVanity (Mar 18, 2010)

I've been following you and your babies, and trust me all the craziness is worth it. For the fairly short amount of time we've had our girls, we've learned so much, and they've brought so much joy to our lives. Even our little sinister Penelope.  

It's my belief sticking with these little guys is the only way to go, and you made the right decision with your babies. I was happy to hear they're doing so much better. Your little fellas sounds so cute, I hope our new baby boys take after their example and become just as rambunctious!


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