# He really bit this time



## relken0608 (Jul 11, 2013)

So it's been mentioned that he's not "biting" me until there's a mass of blood leakage from the area. Well that's what happened. 

Fiance and i were with the boys. I've cleaned up my room so that it's 90% rat proof and had clark running around. He's always very happy and excited to have free range, and now he's got a "new" and really large area to explore. So he was doing his thing and as normal, whenever he came by either of us (we were sitting on the floor, as they seem somewhat apprehensive when we stand) we would say hello clark and try and pet him, but he usually just continued on and so petting was difficult to do. 

So Marcus was wearing an undershirt and a longsleeve button-up over it, but it was unbottoned and open. Clark likes shirt diving, so he climbed marc's lap and started running a lap around his hips, under the shirt. When he came out the other side, he paused by marcs wrist so marcus petted him. Clark bit, bit *hard* and when marcus went to pick him up and get him off, he bit harder. The next few moments were a blur i don't remember. Clark got off at some point and we both stood. Marcus held his hand while it started to bleed and i had to somehow get clark off the floor. He was apprehensive, so i grabbed an empty peanut shell and made the "treat" noise. he came running and, i hadn't meant to actually give the shell to him just to get him into my hand, but he was fast. grabbed the shell after he stepped onto my hand (as i had been teaching him "hand' as a command) and so i just put him in the cage. We went into the bathroom and kept his hand under running water until i got the band-aids but the area was too large for one so we got gauze and wrapped it up. No neosporin. 

So. What in the world. I'm really confused as to why he was bitten, marcus handles him every time he comes over and clark and I had been having a vastly improving relationship, i even posted the good news on the general forums because i was just so happy that we were connecting. Ha!

I was scared of him before because he'd bit me and i'm still always wary but now i'm legitimately afraid. He's fine in his cage, when i go to refill his water bowl or put some food in i'll give him some skritches on the shoulders and he'll kiss my other hand. All of a sudden he's running around and just clamps down on my fiance. I seriously don't get it and its stressing me out. 

Now ive got a vicious circle--i don't want to handle clark because he bites, but he bites because he's unhandled, but i don't want to handle him because....etcetera :/

Debating getting rid of Clark. Then i'll have more time to pay better attention to marley. I know a worker at petsmart and a worker at petco who have rats and are very nice, otherwise i'd post the sale here or craigslist including the cage and accessories. Marcus says there are other options, like trying to enforce rules with a water bottle. We had marley out next and he really didn't like the water bottle so thats useful. But i've used it on clark in the past and after a few times, he didn't care. So i'm not sure. Also Marcus says that we should get him (them) neutered. I said that people on the forum have said that clarks issue is personality not hormones, marcus says his personality derives from his hormones. I don't know. 

Just want to see what you guys think :[


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## nanashi7 (Jun 5, 2013)

If it is getting worse, a neuter might level the playing field. I honestly can't say what happened, was the first bite maybe more a nip but when fiancé freaked out so did Clark ?

It's up to you what you do, think of what's best for you and your rat. If you are afraid of him it's only going to add tension and cause problems. If you know that Clark will be happy with these people go ahead. If these people would kill a biter than deal with one, be cautious. 


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

I'm sort of missing the part where Marcus or you flung Clark into a wall, or swatted him with a broom... My part wild rat bit me once, somewhere between hitting the wall and sliding down to the floor she resolved to never do it again. 

I'm assuming that since Marcus is 1000 times bigger than Clark, Clark got the worst of the confrontation? And assuming he isn't going to repeat his mistake..... Right?????


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## relken0608 (Jul 11, 2013)

I think he kind of lifted his hand/ arm and he let go once gravity started to pull him down. No flinging or swatting. I believe he retreated underneath my dresser right afterwards.


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## MrsTefee (Dec 1, 2013)

I may be able to give you some advice. I have been working with my female rat who is a biter as well. She has bit me and drew blood at least 3 times (probably 4 or 5 haha i lost count). I had a similar experience whilst she was having free range time on our bed and I was sitting with her, she was playing on me and started sniffing my hand and then she bit me! I was like why did you bite me, I wasn't doing anything to frighten her (i wasnt even moving!)!!!

Ive come to the conclusion that since she also was a feeder she was 1. never ever handled and 2. she thinks everything is food and she has to 'try it'.

You might have to just put your brave pants on and continue trying to train him. What Ive been doing is when I reach my hand in the cage and talk to her and she starts sniffing my hand, I would let her bite me or nibble me but i would make a squeak noise to tell her it hurts (but dont pull your hand away!!!)! Sometimes I will have a treat in my hand which she gladly takes from me but I will hold onto it a few seconds longer while she tries to take it so she knows that this is food and not fingers. I think its working because she doesn't try to bite anymore and she 'test bites' where she gently presses but it doesnt hurt. 

I think you just need to keep working with him and you might get bit a few more times but make sure you dont hit him or fling him off and dont pull your hand away, just let him bite and say NO and squeak at him and he will start to understand you arent the food. 

99% of the time I think when a rat does bite its an accident! They dont realize that your fingers werent food (especially if you have good smells on your hands, they may get confused) and especially with new rats that were never handled as babies. You have to train them. If they are biting because they are scared for their lives and feel threatened thats a different story (ie: you moved too fast, you grabbed him too roughtly, etc)

I think if you keep working with him and dont be scared he will learn to be more gentle with your fingers and not have to try to eat everything! Remember you are 100 times bigger than him!

Goodluck!


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## Spiritpaw (Oct 7, 2013)

*positive*

Rat daddy are you suggesting she throw her rat against the wall?! I hopeI am misunderstanding this, and at least you are exaggerating! The fact that we are bigger and perhaps smarter or at least we think so should be enough to ensure that we approach this situation with logic. And most definitely not violence.

Now i know exactly what happens when you use punishment, pain, and aggression with an animal. It eventually can turn nasty. Imagine slapping an orca? Or a dog even? Self defense or learned aggression either way usually occur when punishment pain and what we call dominance is being used. Have you seen that video of the horse attacking the man who was hitting it with a stick? Same as the one with the elephant. And do you know why the shed aquarium was one of the first to switch from correction training to positive reinforcement? It is because they were tired of the negative fallout that punishment most often causes, including the walruses own nasty punishment that they learned to use. Dominance and punishment should never be used to the extreme of causing violence fear and pain. It has a lot of negative consequences for both parties including often the need to rule through fear and pain. While I admit that sometimes an animal does use this of their own initiative, most often if not always there is a better more positive way. At least figure out why the behavior occurred before jumping to drastic solutions. But most definitely try not to treat the animal for the bite, although I personally think she handled the situation quite well.

I wonder if the rat got scared or even defensive of new safe territory? Does he have bad eyesight, was he expecting to be touched? May by he has pain around the area or even simply doesn't want to be touched? It is even a possibility that he was being challenging. But please do not use physical pain as a motivator. Try using gloves to build your confidence against a bite, and maybe do some clicker training, or even pinning. Honestly when it comes to some animals hand's off, meaning gloves, is sometimes a happy compromise. If you are both all right with it till you decide you next action he can at least be worked with, and you can end that viscous cycle till you figure out the what and why of his triggers.

Try an ABC format for this. Antecedent. Behavior. Consequence. Example:
A. Marcus touches rats head
B. Clark bites Marcus
C. Marcus removes finger
Prediction : 

If you keep a log of this you can start figureing it out. But wearing gloves helps and you can still socalize with him and VERY important, prevent clark from practicing= Reinforcing the behaviour.

Teegra and pack


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## relken0608 (Jul 11, 2013)

MrsTeFee these are _not_ food bites, test bites, groom bites, or accident bites. They were not on the fingertips and there was no food residue i can imagine being present. Marc was bitten on the back of the hand without sniffing prior to the incident. I have handled clark before on good terms and he didn't bite this bad. I may have had minor bleeding but this was excessive. 

I agree with SpiritPaw that negative reinforcement is a bad idea. I've seen it firsthand with my dog. I think it's very possible he was being defensive of the new territory. He doesn't seem to have bad eyesight, never found any inclination of that before. Marcus had stroked him a few times (maybe five slow ones) before he decided to bite, it wasn't an "oh you startled me!" situation. I have pet clark in the same area since i got him and he doesn't squeak or try to move away. He has challenged mock humped and repeatedly gone after my arms before. I have used leather driving gloves (thicker than the crappy normal kind) and the pain he gets through the layers of fabric is surprising and enough to make me hesitate. I'm wimpy, i guess. I can't pin him because he does an ab-crunch, reaches my fingers, and bites. Not like i can pin him after that because he's already down. 

In your abc example, is marcus' removing his finger showing submission? Clark saying "i'm not happy with this" and marcus replying with "okay i'll move out of your way"? 

What step by step am i supposed to do when he latches on? The pain is enough to make me shriek and instinctively move away, i can't imagine being able to sit still long enough to say "no" and wait for him to let go. That seems absurd, he'd take a chunk out of my skin by that time. If he had bit me instead of the fiance i wouldn't be able to try again at all, i'm still extremely nervous but i'm at least willing. 

So how do i "punish" him without being negative?

Also marcus has a theory that clark grooms roughly. His normal grooming is a crazy shaking of movements with rough teeth grabbing. If you stay still and let him go nuts for five seconds, he stops and goes on his merry way without biting. We *have* noticed that if you try to pick him up when he does this strange shakey dance thing, *then *he bites. It would seem he doesn't like to be picked up at all. How do i tell the difference between a rough groom, a playful bite/attack, and aggression/dominance?????

Do all rats go through a phase like this? Was it just me and how i raised them? Is it just their personalities? If this is how they all are, i don't think i'll keep them as pets in the future since i can't handle it well.


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## ratsaremylife (Nov 5, 2013)

I've never had males but judging by your description, it sounds like either hormones or a phase... Again I don't know b/c I never had males.


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## nanashi7 (Jun 5, 2013)

My males are not at all like this. Nor are my females. A hormonally-driven phase can take place between 3-6mo but it shouldn't be allowed to get like this.
There are rats with "bratty" or bossy attitudes who seem to be the biters often. It's a dominance thing.

And, RatDaddy I do not believe was honestly saying that's how you fixed rats biting. It's just, having been bitten myself, it is an accidental inherent response to get the pain off your hand and that can involve shaking it off...and if it is a rat, yes that unintentionally means the rat is shaken off. You see the gears turning, the rat realizes "I bit...I got hurt." and they don't want to do it again.

I can't discuss animal-behavioral theories I can only spout my experience. Relken, you've been at Clark for several months now. You've had some success, but it seems an inevitable whirlpool back to aggression. That is why I suggested a neuter. When he has no hormones causing that spiral back into misbehavior, I believe your previous tactics that were met with success should finally work.

As for the grooming, it sounds like dominance straight off. Then you disobey without submitting and he punishes you.


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## nanashi7 (Jun 5, 2013)

I'd thought I'd add, I find with pets how you approach them isn't "one-size fits all". My dog is timid, she doesn't need to be yelled at or smacked or caged to be punished -- a simple reprimand lets her know I'm disappointed, and she instantly is so so sorry. My rat is boisterous, ignoring him is the best way to punish him beacuse he wants my attention and approval. He'll kiss me in apologies and never do it again.
But, there's my biter. She is very bossy and likes it her way. I have to out-top-rat her if I want her to listen to me.


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## Charlottesmom (Nov 27, 2013)

Rat Daddy said:


> I'm sort of missing the part where Marcus or you flung Clark into a wall, or swatted him with a broom... My part wild rat bit me once, somewhere between hitting the wall and sliding down to the floor she resolved to never do it again. I'm assuming that since Marcus is 1000 times bigger than Clark, Clark got the worst of the confrontation? And assuming he isn't going to repeat his mistake..... Right?????


You flung your rat??? There are no words........


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## nanashi7 (Jun 5, 2013)

Charlottesmom said:


> You flung your rat??? There are no words........


I don't think he has done it intentionally, I think he was trying to make a point.

I _have_ flung my rat. It wasn't intentional and I felt awful after. When you have a rat clinging to your skin attempting to cause you serious harm, it is a conditioned response -- like jerking your hand back from the flame. It was bad coincidence that Iris was on my hand when I jerked it back, and that Iris flew when I jerked it back. I was attempting to get the pain away from me, the natural reaction we are ingrained with. 

And, she didn't bite me like that again. It wasn't how I meant to get my message across and had spent many hours before and spent many hours later fixing it in a much calmer way. But it sure as **** helped to be able to sit with her without her tearing chunks out of me -- my back, my legs, my arms, even my neck all bear tiny wounds from her.


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

Nooooo! I'm not advocating rat abuse, and I don't believe in punishment or negative reinforcement as a training technique. And the fact that I flung my part wild rat into the wall, and it fixed her biting issues for all time was co-incidental as it was a reflex that actually contributed to my flesh getting torn worse. And keep in mind, that was a part-wild rat, that had bitten strangers before, and I knew there were certain risks involved with keeping an animal like that.

I also view 'biting' as different from all other rat behaviors and permitting for more extreme measures. First of all rats that bite, often get re-homed or euthanized! A rat's life depends on it learning not to bite! Also rat bites can cause serious infections that can become life threatening. If your friend's kid gets bit you might wind up with a monster emergency room bill or worse... Now, as much as I agree that positive training methods are way better than anything negative, once a lion has it's fangs dug into it's trainer's head, you might want to consider communicating something other than positive messages to it.

I'm also not one that believes rats need to learn not to bite by biting you lots of times. I have an eight year old daughter who was five when we got our first rat, and her mom is rat phobic. If any of our rats bit my daughter even once, my wife would have killed the rat on sight. All heck broke out when my daughter got bit by a mouse, and that barely bled and that ended badly and immediately for the mouse.

I don't believe in punishment, nor aversion training, nor negative reinforcement, but I do believe in negative communication. This is similar to when a parent tells a kid NO! When my daughter was two years old she walked out in front of a moving car, I snatched her back off the road with a great deal of force and quite frankly communicated my anxiety in multiple negative verbal ways... She never walked into the street without looking both ways again and yes, by the age of three she was crossing the road on her own. You see the hypothalamus in both rats and humans decides which experiences are to be remembered and learned from and which are not. To a large degree if the experience is associated with strong stimulus it will be either repeated if favorable or avoided if unpleasant. I never hit my daughter, I only very rarely raise my voice. My reaction to her walking into the street and almost getting killed stimulated her hypothalamus into making this the same kind of a learning connection in her brain as the car actually having hit her would have.

Negative communication needs to be concurrent with the behavior you are trying to prevent from happening again. Your rat bit you, it's very existence is now in jeopardy as is your health and the safety of your guests and family. This is a major event, like your kid running into the highway. This is one of the very rare times where negative communication of a sterner nature is both required and permissible. If Clark keeps biting, Clark will soon be gone, so we are saving Clark's life by teaching him not to bite you.

Does it matter why Clark is biting? No... unless he's in extreme physical pain it doesn't. Our domestic rats have been seriously injured and they have never bitten anyone. They know they don't bite... period.

I'm a really easy going rat owner, our girls walk all over me and take advantage of me constantly. We love them and they love us, but the basis of their extraordinary freedoms around our house is based on them being very well behaved. If I let my rats loose around the house after I go to sleep, I don't expect to be bit while I sleep even if I roll over on one. When my daughter brings over her little friends to play with our rats, I know that they aren't getting bit, when I take my shoulder rat out and introduce her to a crowd of strangers they don't get bit... And if ever a rat has nipped at me in aggression, I responded lovingly with appropriate negative communication and it never did it again.

Appropriate negative communication????? Think about it, when you kid swipes a cookie, you don't raise your voice you just try to explain how it will ruin their dinner... when it reaches into the blue flame on the stove, you shout NO!, when it doesn't listen you might even smack it's hands (with love in your heart). Because you know if you can't resolve your problem with negative communication the fire certainly will. You don't have the time or cruelty to let your kid repeatedly reach his or hand into every kind of fire they will run across.

This is not a license to be cruel to your rats! Negative communication is done out of love not anger. Sure yelling at your rat or bopping his head (keeping in mind he is a small animal and you are huge) will be unpleasant for your rat. But what is going to happen to Clark if he doesn't learn biting is wrong?? Relken0608 is a really nice person, and her boyfriend is very understanding... but how many more times are they going to let themselves be bit?

I know I originally overstated my point.... but you need to think of ways to communicate to Clark that he can't bite you for any reason. He has to know that no matter how nice you are and how much you let him get away with if the bites you really bad things happen to him.

Lastly, lets look to nature to see if rats can learn from negative communication... A rat survives getting killed in a trap, such rats and even mice have been shown to never go into a similar trap again, one painful experience and they learn forever.... A rat attacks an alpha rat and gets stomped, again it's a painful experience that the rat is likely to avoid in the future. Rats are very fast learners. Negative communication works... Yes, it should be avoided as much as possible, but when it's life of death for your rat, whack him with a soft paintbrush or bop him on the head with your fingers.... with as much love as you can. And shout whatever you think will get the message across... My rats respond pretty well to "Have you lost your tiny rodent Mind!?!" I barely raise my voice and they get the idea that they are doing something stupid and stop. Positive communication is almost always best, a stern voice often suffices as appropriate negative communication, but with biting you do whatever you have to do to save your rat's life and protect the humans in your home. And if you can't fix Clark's biting, I agree you can't keep him as a pet.


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

Nanashi7,

My part wild girl came right over to me and apologized... I recall it because I was bleeding pretty badly and really was't in the mood to make up with her at that time. Did your rat come back to you after the fling? And yes, although neither of us would ever advocate the off hand "rat fling" as a training method... and it was an unintentional reflex on both our parts... it works surprisingly well... doesn't it?


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## nanashi7 (Jun 5, 2013)

At the time, Iris and I were still in the midst of negotiating roles. She didn't come over to me but she looked at me and I think realized I wasn't just a giant idiot - I was a potential for hurting her back. The random "oh hey there you are *chomp*" moments were near zero. I wouldn't fling her on purpose ever nor any other rat biting me, but I will say it was effective. And I'm someone who doesn't advocate painful physical punishment.


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## Charlottesmom (Nov 27, 2013)

Your wife killed a mouse because it bit your daughter? She would have a flipping field day with my 16 year old severly Autistic son who at times taunts our dog into almost biting him (this is a very gentle lazy 9 year old Golden Retiever) it is my job to get the child to stop bugging the dog before he tizzies her into snapping. It happened once, I was in the bathroom but could hear him bothering her and sure enough he got nipped on the finger (no blood) and Zach got the punishment not my dog she was trying to get away from him. Your daughter may have been holding the mouse too tight or otherwise scaring it, not all animals that bite do it for fun, there is a reason behind it and with kids most of the time the kid is annoying the animal in some way shape or form. Now the story is totally different with a vicious animal...I just can't see killing or otherwise "getting rid of" a mouse or any small animal due to a nip. I would have gotten rid of my 15 year old African Grey 30 times over if a nip was cause for dismissal. I learned to read her body language (works with my dog too) and now nobody has been nipped in well over a year. We also taught our son to be gentler with both the dog and my bird, he was always great with our hamsters and rats. I've never had a rat who bites and I can't say what I would do if I did but I'm going to study up on rat body language and see what's what.


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## Batman (Sep 11, 2013)

I agree with Charlotte my rat gimchi nip and bit me all the time and it never crossed my mind to get rid of her I did however notice that she got along better with name rats and males in general my friend Jeff took her got her fixed and now living with his male Tokyo and is happy. Point is everyday she would nip or bite and I never thought about killing her. But with body languages is very Important especially with small animals and kids.

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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

We have a wild conure parrot and have had a part wild rat... The parrot and daughter keep a healthy distance and the part wild rat was a rag doll in my daughter's hands... my daughter is/was safe in both cases. I however have gotten blood poisoning from the parrot and a nasty bite from the part wild rat... But I make certain allowances for wild animals. My part wild rat only bit me once and my parrot hasn't drawn blood in years. Still when you invite wild animals into your home you have to expect certain non-domestic behaviors.

When it comes to our domestic rats they don't bite.... ever. Rats are smart and can be taught better and when they can't they aren't pets. I know about autistic kids, Fuzzy Rat did the local special kids picnics and once she wound up being held by the tail by an autistic boy... she never let go of his cupcake while I rescued her. To be fair, she was stealing his cupcake, but the kid had super fast grabby hands. Luckily, I am faster and lifted rat and cupcake above his head and he let go before her tail got degloved. Still true to form she didn't bite. As a matter of fact Fuzzy Rat had several kid inflicted injuries and never bit.... she got the tip of her tail cut off by an office chair and didn't bite... Max got her head stepped on by my daughter when they were running in the park chasing each other... she almost died but never bit... My domestic rats don't bite... never - ever. And my point was, if they ever did bite my daughter, they wouldn't last the night in my house and there wouldn't be a thing I could do to protect them. We've put the mouse incident behind us... so I'm not going there again.

When my part wild rat tore up my neighbor's hand he opted not to go to he hospital... he didn't have insurance and didn't like hospitals... but if he had gone to the ER the visit could have easily run up thousands of dollars in stitches, shots etc. And as X-special forces he wasn't adverse to searing pain or a few scars... But he had three little kids living with him and a wife and if they got bit this fiasco could have cost me big bucks, even if I wasn't legally responsible as the rat was living wild at the time, I would have felt morally obligated to help. If you keep dangerous animals you have to be prepared to be responsible for them. Things could have gotten really expensive for me really fast. I offered to take my neighbor to the hospital and when he declined, I felt better and I wasn't the person who was bit. Rat-sponsibility is a lesson I nearly learned the hard way. 

Everyone gets to make their own decision as to what pets to keep... but biting rats can cost you big... I strangely admire people that will keep their commitment to a biting rat, but I think a reasonable person would get rid of one they couldn't fix. Being trapped alone in a cage and handled with oven mitts is no life for a rat and getting bit is no way for a human to live. Therefore taking extreme measures to fix a biting rat is the best and most reasonable option. It's not cruelty if it's in the animal's best interest. I mean if you took your rat for surgery to save it's life and it was going to be in pain afterwards, wouldn't that still be justified?


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## relken0608 (Jul 11, 2013)

Alright so what do I *do* when he bites me? Shout "no that hurts me" at him till he let's go? I've been trying a spray bottle, for when he goes to an area I don't want him to, but I have a feeling he'll get used to it soon and stop caring. 

Neuter would be an option if I can find someone to do it. 

Rat daddy, can you try and explain how do I know if he's just really happy and trying to play-wrestle with me and when he's trying to dominate me? I'd like to play with him but he does his strange skittering shaking nipping thing. I can't tell if its humping or shaking. 

We are going to my moms house for a week so they'll be in neutral territory. I was hoping, before all this happened, that we would be able to reintroduce them. Put them in the tub with a little water. But if Clark doesn't respect me as alpha that's not he best idea, right?

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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

Play fighting can be really scary... My part wild rat would leap up from my desk and put a dozen bites on my face before I could swipe her off... But she never drew blood or even left a mark.

Rats have amazing control of their mouth! I mean they can unroll a whole roll of toilet paper without punching a hole through a single sheet with their moist teeth... well until they get all enthusiastic and start shredding the paper.

Generally if your rat is biting you, it means it. And it also knows it's hurting you... unlike humans rats do sometimes hurt each other to make their point. And sometimes they bite people on purpose. And sometimes you have to treat the behavior not the cause... 

Some time ago, I recommended that someone try bopping their rat with a 3 inch soft bristle paint brush while shouting NO at the top of their lungs... as I recall it worked a treat. There's nothing magic about the paint brush but it will startle Clark without hurting him. Again apply moderated force with love... test the appropriate force to apply on a sensative part of your own body like your lips or nose and I suppose it goes without saying, but lately everyone has been nit-picking everything I write.. don't blind yourself... And this is only for biting behavior...

Remember biting behavior is different than any other behavior so you don't swat your rat for doing something minor... Positive communication is always better than negative communication but you just can't reward your rat for clamping onto your finger.


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## bazmonkey (Nov 8, 2013)

Rat Daddy said:


> I don't believe in punishment, nor aversion training, nor negative reinforcement, but I do believe in negative communication. This is similar to when a parent...


Rat Daddy, there is a crucial difference between using negative conditioning on a child and an animal: you can explain it to the child afterwards. He/she can be given an explicit explanation for past events. If a child acted strange after being swatted at for reaching towards a flame, a person could explain why it had to happen. If negative "communication" (call it what you want, it's the 'negative' part that matters) accidentally conveys the wrong concept to a rat and makes it worse, you can't sit it down and reflect on arbitrary events in the past to find what it's misunderstanding. 



> A rat attacks an alpha rat and gets stomped, again it's a painful experience that the rat is likely to avoid in the future.


I don't think this is true. The hierarchical relationship between groups of animals must be maintained. It is constantly being tested by the members within to some extent, and in fact this constant challenging is what drives changes to the dynamic. If you removed the "alpha", does not another assume the position? If you assembled a cage of previous alphas, would they not (with proper introduction) assume a relationship themselves, where most are no longer "alpha" (this really is the wrong word)? A rat does not assert itself at a young age and enjoy a lifetime of peaceful reverence by its cagemates until something changes. It is not like a title that's simply respected from that point on.

This is also different than their instinctive aversion to previously-dangerous or unfamiliar elements in their environment.

Not every household threatens death or abandonment upon their animals for a nasty bite.

The moment a person's instinct to recoil when in pain (accidentally flinging the rat) becomes purposefully displaying fight/flight responses (purposefully flinging the rat, defense bops to the nose, yelling), it's become negative conditioning no matter what you're trying to communicate. Yes it's been used in animal behavior before. Yes it can work. Yes, it can go wrong. Yes, it's TOTALLY unnecessary.


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

Last night my girls had a spat for whatever reason one pounced on the other and the later squeaked. To add to the Negativity my daughter shouted NO FIGHTING! Negativity all around.... The rats don't hate each other and neither hates my daughter... 

Now to take this even one step farther... Max learned something entirely new... When Max sees me typing on the keyboard she walks away (she always does this)... So suddenly she starts pushing stuff off the dishwasher and onto the floor... Naturally I got up and using my "annoyed dad" voice told her to stop pushing stuff onto the floor then I picked her up and played with her a while and went back to my computer... so she pushed an orchid from the windowsill onto the floor.. I picked it up, now sans the bark in the pot and put it on the windowsill, reprimanded her, and aww she looked so sad, I picked her up and played with her a while again and went back to work on my computer... when again there was a crash... something else from the dishwasher but this time she runs over to the windowsill and starts fake mauling my orchid... she didn't actually bite the plant but she sure made it look like she was and again I reprimanded her then picked her up and played with her.... Well this went on most of the night. After I finally moved what's left of the poor orchid she found other things to knock over. 

Max made the association between knocking the orchid off the windowsill and getting picked up and played with, with every cycle it got faster... To the point I turned around and barely typed a few words and the plant was on the floor again. Max knew she was going to get yelled at, because I barely opened my mouth and she would duck out of arms reach and do the guilty look and she waited out my "Max have you lost your tiny rodent Mind..." speech and then as soon as I said "OK come here" she dashed up my arm and frolicked all over me. Not only did Max learn to anticipate my negative communication, she learned that something good comes after it that was much better than getting yelled at for a few seconds. 

Now after a little sleep, I realized that I screwed up by actually rewarding her bad behavior on a net basis... but this goes to the point that a little negative communication doesn't do any lasting damage. In fact Max learned to predict it, bring it down on herself and ride it out for the fun play with daddy session that followed. This was textbook learned negative behavior.. kids do it all of the time.... its called being bad to get mom's attention. Kids do something bad, get yelled at and then when mom feels guilty and makes it up to them they get the attention they wanted. As much as I hate my operand conditioning education, it was really neat to watch it work in rats... 

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about operand conditioning... behavior modification and good old BF Skinner... Lots of the old studies came to mind... And I remember one particularly, and it was done on rats. It was a study done with negative conditioning... The Skinner box had two clearly demarcated sides and a light would go on and one side was electrified the rat would learn to jump to the safe side when the light went on to avoid the shock. Ostensibly, this caused the rat very little distress. It just jumped to the safe side and waited for the light to go off to resume it's normal activities. But when the rat couldn't tell which side was going to be electrified it got really stressed and either froze or jumped about randomly... when you electrified both sides and there was no safe side the rat would freeze up and start doing all kinds of stress behaviors and it's mental condition would deteriorate rather quickly...

Basically, rats could learn to anticipate negative stimulus and avoid it and that didn't seem to do any harm to them at all, they quickly adapted. When they learned to predict negative stimulus but couldn't always avoid it they became stressed and anxious... when they knew they were going to get zapped and they knew there was no were to jump to... they really got screwed up.

This model predicts that as long as you apply negative stimulus in a predictable way animals develop an aversion response and there is no or very little residual cognitive dissonance beyond the event itself. Therefore as long as your rat can safely predict that it will get bopped if it bites you, all it has to do is not bite you to avoid getting bopped so unless the reward (as in the case of Max) is greater than the punishment the rat will stop doing it and everyone is happy... In order to correctly apply this method the subject needs to draw and association between the trigger stimulus and the adverse event. In other words if you flash a light and administer a shock a few minutes or hours later the rat won't associate the light with the shock or if you put the light on a timer and and it flashes all of the time including when the shock comes the rat might not draw the association as quickly either... either way the animal gets stressed.

The lessons that were drawn from these studies were that the precursor event and the negative stimulus need to be nearly concurrent for a rat to draw the association and sufficiently unpleasant to make the rat want to avoid the consequences... In other words... you bop your rat while his teeth are still under your skin! This will create the strongest association between the biting and the punishment, he'll learn to avoid getting bopped by not biting you and he will suffer very little cognitive stress going forwards... 

In a perfect Skinnerian world this is the "correct" application of negative reinforcement or negative conditioning.

Now on to some fuzzier psychology... it got funkier when these methods started getting applied in the real world... with people on animals and people on people.... So lets say hubby yells at his wife every time she lights a cigarette and gives her the long lecture.. it's a negative stimulus to a behavior which the wife can easily associate with the targeted behavior so at first she will usually reduce her smoking... so far so good... then hubby yells at his wife for being late with dinner and again she starts cooking earlier... then he yells at her for not doing the dishes again she complies... And hubby has heaven on earth.... NOT SO FAST... Although each event produces little stress and the wife learns to avoid most of the negative conditioning events... other strange behaviors start to occur... she starts sleeping on the couch, coming home less frequently, keeps inadvertently mixing his mashed potatoes with rat poison.. In short she stops liking hubby and starts resenting him and he gets heck on earth instead of heaven on earth. This is true with animals too, animals stop liking you when you punish them too much... you aren't a nice human any more.

You won't believe how much effort went into trying to calculate how much pleasure or positive stimulus offsets how much negative stimulus on order to avoid the animal or human from becoming unpredictable or resentful. But it turns out the the effects are cumulative and negative conditioning will erode a relationship over time even when positive reinforcement is continually applied.. There may be a balance but it's hard to quantify... So if you keep reminding hubby to pick up his socks, he's never likely to divorce you over it, but if you push your luck.... once he thinks your a nag... your relationship is in trouble.

Sorry for the long preamble... but people should understand where "studies have shown that negative reinforcement or conditioning doesn't" work comes from. And where people get the only positive reinforcement myth.

Believe it or not studies showed that constant and predictable positive reinforcement also had negative consequences. As in people don't like people who are "too nice" and "nice people get taken for granted." The positive reinforcement folks tend to forget those studies.

By the time Fuzzy Rat was a year old... all the bluster I could muster meant little to her.. she knew I wasn't really going to punish her. My daughter on the other hand just might, so if I said something I got ignored, so if I wanted Fuzzy Rat to do something I would actually have to call my daughter to get her to do it or stop doing something that annoyed me. And that included calling her when she didn't want to come... Actually sometimes she would come out as soon as I called my daughter to call her. My daughter never tipped the balance and Fuzzy Rat loved her until the moment she died.

So, if operand conditioning works so well why not use it... because it has a slippery and unpredictable slope down the road and that's both for the negative and the positive aspects. Always punishing Fuzzy Rat might have gotten me bit, but always rewarding her got me ignored... And yes, Max walks all over me too now except outdoors where the constant danger in the environment makes listening to me and staying with me the right thing to do.

Just because we should reject operand conditioning and behavior modification doesn't mean we should get stupid! We can't just throw our hands up into the air and say we shouldn't communicate with each other and our rats because eventually we will get ignored or hated. 

Immersion relies on both negative and positive communication... So maybe you caught me with my pants down... it's a whole lot like negative and positive conditioning or reinforcement but it's not contrived as part of a strategy of animal domination. Basically you use it like you would with a child you always try to be encouraging, but sometimes you have to be dad or mom and set limits. It's literally the difference between communication and conditioning. Where conditioning has the overtones of domination and communication implies a sharing of thought.

If a rat is doing a dangerous activity like biting. Negative communication is appropriate and when it's applied sincerely and appropriately it can fix a problem without taking you down the slippery slope. Likewise positive communications when appropriate will encourage your rat and build it's self esteem. ( I can't prove the self esteem part, it just seems right).

So you might say that love is unconditional until it's abused by someone trying to over control their subject literally either way.

So lets say we are using appropriate communication and not conditioning... What's wrong with setting limits? The answer is NOTHING. Imagine what a child would look like if everyone always told them that they were right and good and everything they did was wonderful... There's actually a twilight zone episode that postulates precisely that. It would look ugly and come to a painful and catastrophic end by the time it grows up and hits reality.

Bazmonkey and I agree in principle but for different reasons and therefore to different degrees. And yes in all reality, I only have one story where negative communication worked, and I did it by accident because I actually might be a softer touch than Bazmonkey.... 

So when bazmonkey writes that "Not every household threatens death or abandonment upon their animals for a nasty bite." Now here I'm going to do everyone a favor... I really don't think (and I'm happy to be corrected if I'm wrong, because I'm speaking for someone else) that Bazmonkey means to imply that people should put up with and keep screwed up biting rats in their home. Because I believe that would be absurd. I think Bazmonkey is implying they should take less severe corrective steps that re-homing the rat. When my part wild rat tore up my neighbors hand an arm... that could have cost me thousands of dollars. And if my daughter was in danger when she was sleeping or playing with the rats, I couldn't allow that, as her dad. Now, 30 years ago I had a hamster that bit me almost every day and I kept it... I'm way more understanding than most folks, but now even I'm too old to have a rat that bites me. 

When I say biting rats are not pets. I do mean it! But like Bazmonkey I think we are both implying that people should take corrective steps rather than the Craig's list option or worse.

Now here's where it becomes a matter of degree... If bopping a rat with a paintbrush fixes the biting problem and that negative communication doesn't become part of the operand conditioning model or it's component negative conditioning... heck... its faster than an immersion session (although it can be done there in a more controlled environment), it's cheaper and safer than neutering, it's kinder than keeping the rat locked in a separate cage all of the time it's way better than Craig's List and its light year ahead of the terminal option. 

Wow, I hardly see a downside as long as the negative communication is understood by the rat to be the result of its behavior and doesn't cause unnecessary cognitive distress. If the rats usual relationship is full of happy positive communication and there's a bond of love between the human and the rat.. no damage should be done to the relationship.

Now there are those who are going to disagree with my scientifically supported and philosophically reasoned argument... But what have they actually offered that doesn't fall into my worse then a bop category or tolerating biting... positive reinforcement? That's not even a whole theory and the science that supports it also supports negative conditioning... Something from trust training? Go read the old threads... when people tried eeping and sticking their hands back into their rats cages they got bit harder and more often! Most of our early immersions were to fix victims of trust training that got worse and worse over time until some actually attacked their cage mates. Nooo... that was nothing more that quicksand when it came to aggressive and biting rats.... 

So I'm not going to argue someone's point for them... If someone really has a better method than a little bop when it's absolutely necessary lets hear it...


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## Charlottesmom (Nov 27, 2013)

Rat Daddy said:


> Last night my girls had a spat for whatever reason one pounced on the other and the later squeaked. To add to the Negativity my daughter shouted NO FIGHTING! Negativity all around.... The rats don't hate each other and neither hates my daughter... Now to take this even one step farther... Max learned something entirely new... When Max sees me typing on the keyboard she walks away (she always does this)... So suddenly she starts pushing stuff off the dishwasher and onto the floor... Naturally I got up and using my "annoyed dad" voice told her to stop pushing stuff onto the floor then I picked her up and played with her a while and went back to my computer... so she pushed an orchid from the windowsill onto the floor.. I picked it up, now sans the bark in the pot and put it on the windowsill, reprimanded her, and aww she looked so sad, I picked her up and played with her a while again and went back to work on my computer... when again there was a crash... something else from the dishwasher but this time she runs over to the windowsill and starts fake mauling my orchid... she didn't actually bite the plant but she sure made it look like she was and again I reprimanded her then picked her up and played with her.... Well this went on most of the night. After I finally moved what's left of the poor orchid she found other things to knock over. Max made the association between knocking the orchid off the windowsill and getting picked up and played with, with every cycle it got faster... To the point I turned around and barely typed a few words and the plant was on the floor again. Max knew she was going to get yelled at, because I barely opened my mouth and she would duck out of arms reach and do the guilty look and she waited out my "Max have you lost your tiny rodent Mind..." speech and then as soon as I said "OK come here" she dashed up my arm and frolicked all over me. Not only did Max learn to anticipate my negative communication, she learned that something good comes after it that was much better than getting yelled at for a few seconds. Now after a little sleep, I realized that I screwed up by actually rewarding her bad behavior on a net basis... but this goes to the point that a little negative communication doesn't do any lasting damage. In fact Max learned to predict it, bring it down on herself and ride it out for the fun play with daddy session that followed. This was textbook learned negative behavior.. kids do it all of the time.... its called being bad to get mom's attention. Kids do something bad, get yelled at and then when mom feels guilty and makes it up to them they get the attention they wanted. As much as I hate my operand conditioning education, it was really neat to watch it work in rats... Lately, I've been thinking a lot about operand conditioning... behavior modification and good old BF Skinner... Lots of the old studies came to mind... And I remember one particularly, and it was done on rats. It was a study done with negative conditioning... The Skinner box had two clearly demarcated sides and a light would go on and one side was electrified the rat would learn to jump to the safe side when the light went on to avoid the shock. Ostensibly, this caused the rat very little distress. It just jumped to the safe side and waited for the light to go off to resume it's normal activities. But when the rat couldn't tell which side was going to be electrified it got really stressed and either froze or jumped about randomly... when you electrified both sides and there was no safe side the rat would freeze up and start doing all kinds of stress behaviors and it's mental condition would deteriorate rather quickly...Basically, rats could learn to anticipate negative stimulus and avoid it and that didn't seem to do any harm to them at all, they quickly adapted. When they learned to predict negative stimulus but couldn't always avoid it they became stressed and anxious... when they knew they were going to get zapped and they knew there was no were to jump to... they really got screwed up.This model predicts that as long as you apply negative stimulus in a predictable way animals develop an aversion response and there is no or very little residual cognitive dissonance beyond the event itself. Therefore as long as your rat can safely predict that it will get bopped if it bites you, all it has to do is not bite you to avoid getting bopped so unless the reward (as in the case of Max) is greater than the punishment the rat will stop doing it and everyone is happy... In order to correctly apply this method the subject needs to draw and association between the trigger stimulus and the adverse event. In other words if you flash a light and administer a shock a few minutes or hours later the rat won't associate the light with the shock or if you put the light on a timer and and it flashes all of the time including when the shock comes the rat might not draw the association as quickly either... either way the animal gets stressed.The lessons that were drawn from these studies were that the precursor event and the negative stimulus need to be nearly concurrent for a rat to draw the association and sufficiently unpleasant to make the rat want to avoid the consequences... In other words... you bop your rat while his teeth are still under your skin! This will create the strongest association between the biting and the punishment, he'll learn to avoid getting bopped by not biting you and he will suffer very little cognitive stress going forwards... In a perfect Skinnerian world this is the "correct" application of negative reinforcement or negative conditioning.Now on to some fuzzier psychology... it got funkier when these methods started getting applied in the real world... with people on animals and people on people.... So lets say hubby yells at his wife every time she lights a cigarette and gives her the long lecture.. it's a negative stimulus to a behavior which the wife can easily associate with the targeted behavior so at first she will usually reduce her smoking... so far so good... then hubby yells at his wife for being late with dinner and again she starts cooking earlier... then he yells at her for not doing the dishes again she complies... And hubby has heaven on earth.... NOT SO FAST... Although each event produces little stress and the wife learns to avoid most of the negative conditioning events... other strange behaviors start to occur... she starts sleeping on the couch, coming home less frequently, keeps inadvertently mixing his mashed potatoes with rat poison.. In short she stops liking hubby and starts resenting him and he gets heck on earth instead of heaven on earth. This is true with animals too, animals stop liking you when you punish them too much... you aren't a nice human any more.You won't believe how much effort went into trying to calculate how much pleasure or positive stimulus offsets how much negative stimulus on order to avoid the animal or human from becoming unpredictable or resentful. But it turns out the the effects are cumulative and negative conditioning will erode a relationship over time even when positive reinforcement is continually applied.. There may be a balance but it's hard to quantify... So if you keep reminding hubby to pick up his socks, he's never likely to divorce you over it, but if you push your luck.... once he thinks your a nag... your relationship is in trouble.Sorry for the long preamble... but people should understand where "studies have shown that negative reinforcement or conditioning doesn't" work comes from. And where people get the only positive reinforcement myth.Believe it or not studies showed that constant and predictable positive reinforcement also had negative consequences. As in people don't like people who are "too nice" and "nice people get taken for granted." The positive reinforcement folks tend to forget those studies.By the time Fuzzy Rat was a year old... all the bluster I could muster meant little to her.. she knew I wasn't really going to punish her. My daughter on the other hand just might, so if I said something I got ignored, so if I wanted Fuzzy Rat to do something I would actually have to call my daughter to get her to do it or stop doing something that annoyed me. And that included calling her when she didn't want to come... Actually sometimes she would come out as soon as I called my daughter to call her. My daughter never tipped the balance and Fuzzy Rat loved her until the moment she died.So, if operand conditioning works so well why not use it... because it has a slippery and unpredictable slope down the road and that's both for the negative and the positive aspects. Always punishing Fuzzy Rat might have gotten me bit, but always rewarding her got me ignored... And yes, Max walks all over me too now except outdoors where the constant danger in the environment makes listening to me and staying with me the right thing to do.Just because we should reject operand conditioning and behavior modification doesn't mean we should get stupid! We can't just throw our hands up into the air and say we shouldn't communicate with each other and our rats because eventually we will get ignored or hated. Immersion relies on both negative and positive communication... So maybe you caught me with my pants down... it's a whole lot like negative and positive conditioning or reinforcement but it's not contrived as part of a strategy of animal domination. Basically you use it like you would with a child you always try to be encouraging, but sometimes you have to be dad or mom and set limits. It's literally the difference between communication and conditioning. Where conditioning has the overtones of domination and communication implies a sharing of thought.If a rat is doing a dangerous activity like biting. Negative communication is appropriate and when it's applied sincerely and appropriately it can fix a problem without taking you down the slippery slope. Likewise positive communications when appropriate will encourage your rat and build it's self esteem. ( I can't prove the self esteem part, it just seems right). So you might say that love is unconditional until it's abused by someone trying to over control their subject literally either way.So lets say we are using appropriate communication and not conditioning... What's wrong with setting limits? The answer is NOTHING. Imagine what a child would look like if everyone always told them that they were right and good and everything they did was wonderful... There's actually a twilight zone episode that postulates precisely that. It would look ugly and come to a painful and catastrophic end by the time it grows up and hits reality.Bazmonkey and I agree in principle but for different reasons and therefore to different degrees. And yes in all reality, I only have one story where negative communication worked, and I did it by accident because I actually might be a softer touch than Bazmonkey.... So when bazmonkey writes that "Not every household threatens death or abandonment upon their animals for a nasty bite." Now here I'm going to do everyone a favor... I really don't think (and I'm happy to be corrected if I'm wrong, because I'm speaking for someone else) that Bazmonkey means to imply that people should put up with and keep screwed up biting rats in their home. Because I believe that would be absurd. I think Bazmonkey is implying they should take less severe corrective steps that re-homing the rat. When my part wild rat tore up my neighbors hand an arm... that could have cost me thousands of dollars. And if my daughter was in danger when she was sleeping or playing with the rats, I couldn't allow that, as her dad. Now, 30 years ago I had a hamster that bit me almost every day and I kept it... I'm way more understanding than most folks, but now even I'm too old to have a rat that bites me. When I say biting rats are not pets. I do mean it! But like Bazmonkey I think we are both implying that people should take corrective steps rather than the Craig's list option or worse.Now here's where it becomes a matter of degree... If bopping a rat with a paintbrush fixes the biting problem and that negative communication doesn't become part of the operand conditioning model or it's component negative conditioning... heck... its faster than an immersion session (although it can be done there in a more controlled environment), it's cheaper and safer than neutering, it's kinder than keeping the rat locked in a separate cage all of the time it's way better than Craig's List and its light year ahead of the terminal option. Wow, I hardly see a downside as long as the negative communication is understood by the rat to be the result of its behavior and doesn't cause unnecessary cognitive distress. If the rats usual relationship is full of happy positive communication and there's a bond of love between the human and the rat.. no damage should be done to the relationship.Now there are those who are going to disagree with my scientifically supported and philosophically reasoned argument... But what have they actually offered that doesn't fall into my worse then a bop category or tolerating biting... positive reinforcement? That's not even a whole theory and the science that supports it also supports negative conditioning... Something from trust training? Go read the old threads... when people tried eeping and sticking their hands back into their rats cages they got bit harder and more often! Most of our early immersions were to fix victims of trust training that got worse and worse over time until some actually attacked their cage mates. Nooo... that was nothing more that quicksand when it came to aggressive and biting rats.... So I'm not going to argue someone's point for them... If someone really has a better method than a little bop when it's absolutely necessary lets hear it...


RD, my only questions after reading that tome are 1. How did your rat get on top of the dishwasher, I'm very curious about that, if he can get up there I'd be afraid of him falling off the counter or even winding up IN the dishwasher, don't laugh it has happened to a friends ferret! And 2. Why didn't you remove him to another area or even give him to you daughter to play with him or put him in his cage when he continued to play with or knock over the plant, give him a one strike and you're out (or redirected, or put in his home)...Case in point, my ferret Toby (this is a twenty five year old story) on his second day with us decided to dig in my huge ficus tree that was in the livingroom, the thing as huge and had to stay on the floor it was so huge. Mom...me was peeved, he got scooped up and put back in his cage, and told "no dig" then I proceeded to pour a bag of big stones in the plants pot (they were landscaping stones that were left over). Toby never bothered the plant again because I made it unavailabe for fun the rocks made it impossible to dig in. You could have moved the plant if he knocked it over or otherwise made it unavailable. You seem very passive....not a bad thing persay, but things could be corrected after the first time, not the 15th. I'm not saying constantly punish, I'm saying redirect.


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## Charlottesmom (Nov 27, 2013)

Charlottesmom said:


> !


 This was supposed to be deleted, sorry.


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## Charlottesmom (Nov 27, 2013)

That message was supposed to be deleted, and I Pmed an apology to RD, I fully admit those were horrible things to say. i really don't know why I was such an ass to RD, yes we disagree but I could do it without the personal attacks. I truely am sorry for what I said and will learn to not say anything if it is not nice or constructive to the conversation, what was said above was not either. Again, apologies.


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## Charlottesmom (Nov 27, 2013)

deleted.
Seems it did not get deleted but I reported it to the mods, hopefully they can remove it. I feel horrible about writing it, as I should.


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## Jaguar (Nov 15, 2009)

Hopefully we've learned a little from this situation. Please don't let it happen again.


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## cassieb (Aug 6, 2013)

I'm not sure how this post turned into cornering rat daddy... He's helped me very much and sir I appreciate your sarcastic dry humor. 

The only advise I have is thick gloves, small closed in space, and a lot of spare time. Immersion was the ONLY thing that into opinion will help with the biting. I have many many post about my snowbell... Now after all that he hadn't bit in I can't even remember how long. 


Sent from Petguide.com Free App


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

Charlottesmom, 

I gather that you care for rats as much as I do. And I am not on any other board. I'm a big boy and I don't get offended if people don't agree with me... immersion has worked for hundreds if not thousands of people and it works way better than trust training, and it will continue to work regardless of your opinion of me or the method. 

I also do believe that most people know me around here. And aren't going to be influenced by a rant one way or the other. This is the best rat board on the internet and it's because everybody gets to express their feelings.
If it made you feel better it was worth it. 

I've read what you have written elsewhere... I've answered every accusation, made every explanation and I have every proof that the immersion method works. Some day you may come around to my way of thinking, or maybe not, it's up to you. Even if you don't feel I should have an opinion, I will defend yours and I hope everyone else will agree with me. In the mean time, I'm going to continue doing what I've been doing all along... helping people with their rats, by giving the best advise I can based on what I know is right and what has already helped lots of other people.

And I didn't actually ask anyone to give up... I think I pretty clearly explained my position and I just asked for a faster, better and easier way to correct a biting rat than a little harmless bop. I don't think after all I went through to defend my previous comment that was unreasonable.


CM - RD, my only questions after reading that tome are 1. How did your rat get on top of the dishwasher, I'm very curious about that, if he can get up there I'd be afraid of him falling off the counter or even winding up IN the dishwasher, don't laugh it has happened to a friends ferret! 

Max climbed the radiator behind the dishwasher. She's young and she can get onto almost everything but the file cabinets... My part wild would put her back against the file cabinets and walk up the wall to get there but Max hasn't figured it out. And the dishwasher hasn't been hooked up for years, It came with us when we moved her because it was brand new and we never found a good way to hook it up. We are only 3 people and dishes aren't a big deal.

CM -And 2. Why didn't you remove him to another area or even give him to you daughter to play with him or put him in his cage when he continued to play with or knock over the plant, give him a one strike and you're out (or redirected, or put in his home)...Case in point, my ferret Toby (this is a twenty five year old story) on his second day with us decided to dig in my huge ficus tree that was in the livingroom, the thing as huge and had to stay on the floor it was so huge. Mom...me was peeved, he got scooped up and put back in his cage, and told "no dig" then I proceeded to pour a bag of big stones in the plants pot (they were landscaping stones that were left over). Toby never bothered the plant again because I made it unavailabe for fun the rocks made it impossible to dig in. You could have moved the plant if he knocked it over or otherwise made it unavailable. You seem very passive....not a bad thing persay, but things could be corrected after the first time, not the 15th. I'm not saying constantly punish, I'm saying redirect.

My home consists of two discrete apartments of over-under design... the first floor is primarily living quarters and the second floor is office. As my wife is rat phobic the rats live in the office... hence the dishwasher which has been situated in the kitchen of the office level is more of a counter and isn't hooked up... When my wife goes to bed downstairs I usually set the rats free to roam for the night... yesterday I stayed up late for an internet discussion that was intriguing me. Well it turns out that my wife was hiding my daughters Halloween and birthday pinyata candy under her desk where I wasn't supposed to find it.... Well the rats did! and they were stashing candy bars all over the office before I stopped them and put the candy atop the file cabinets.... So far so good... then there were tiny little wrapper crunching noises... and then there were two sugar mad rodents chasing each other around going insane with energy and exuberance. They were trash diving and tail chasing and even my old tumorous Amelia was digging in my own scrawny ficus tree pot. They were knocking things over and dragging things around and i couldn't help it.. I couldn't break up the party. It's the first time I've seen Amelia happy since Fuzzy Rat died and she kept running up to me to get skritched and picked up and put down... and then when I was trying to compose a reply to something someone posted to me on the internet with all seriousness and ernesty Max came up with the strategy to get my attention...

Pretty much the first time the orchid hit the floor (its a catalaya) the bark and stones were out of the pot so I just put the plant back into the empty pot and put it back on the windowsill. Then I played with Max and went back to my PC... The second time the dirt was already out of the plastic pot... I eventually did move what's left of the plant.

Naturally my daughter was sleeping downstairs as the rataclysm took place from about midnight to 5 AM when Amelia slunk to her secret nest for the day and Max went into a sugar stupor on my desk.

Normally my rats slink around the second floor unnoticed keeping very quiet all night long. Last night they were like kids with fireworks.


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## Sylver (Sep 5, 2013)

Rodents aren't dogs. Or horses. Or cats. Or any sort of child. They're different animals altogether, and they understand things differently. That's why you can't train them like any of those things, because your cues stop working the moment they decide they'd just rather not do the thing you're wanting them to do. They think. They make decisions. They learn from the results of their decisions. That is why they are such a successful species. That is why they are so good at evading traps and poison- because they, or someone close to them, made poor choices before, and they learned from that experience. 

They're also incredibly hardy. By ratio, much more-so than dogs/horses/kids/etc. That's why they can jump many times higher than their body length, and take even higher falls, without so much as twitching a whisker. That's why they can be attacked by cats and rats and still have a chance to emerge victorious. It's also why they can tolerate biting the crap out of each other if they disrespect the wrong pack member and not just turn into a bunch of dead rats. 

Obviously going out of your way to harm any animal, especially as a punishment after the fact, is not going to help you. But flinging or swatting something that is actively latched onto your finger is a reaction, and they WILL learn from that. Bite down on soft flesh= take a ride, easy as that. They're smart and sensitive enough to know exactly how hard they are biting, and why. That's why you can have sweet, tiny nibbles on your fingers, but the moment they find fingernail they bite down hard, they know they aren't hurting you. If they hurt you on accident, and you make that known, there's a good chance that they'll apologize. 

Giving a rat treats for not biting you would be tantamount to giving a rat treats FOR biting you. You stop treats, why not bite again? Rat bites are very painful, and can go all the way down to the bone, get infected, abscess, etc. Positive enforcement to get a rat to stop biting is really only going to work for rats that are biting out of fear, not one that bites for fun or aggression. That's why the negative enforcement needs to be IMMEDIATE, as in there are no seconds, and as few split-seconds, as possible, before a very negative reaction. If you wait even a few seconds, it's too late to do anything at all, and now your rat is going to be even more likely to bite again.

Myself, I simply won't deal with it. There are too many other good rats at the pet stores that are going to wind up as snake food, who have never bitten anyone, and I won't take up their potential cage space with a vicious one. I won't put myself or anyone else through any more biting rats if they can't be corrected. I'd give him a nice last supper and have him humanely euthanized. If I were the rat, I think I'd probably prefer a quick, harsh lesson to being put down. Finger wagging and telling them they're naughty isn't going to work with these critters. 

My rats have tried testing here and there with firm nips. A firm scratch-down or pin stops that pretty quickly. If they're just doing it out of play, they pretty much flip over on their back on their own when I reach for them after they nip, then lick my fingers like crazy. Can't be mad at a belly and kisses! But they certainly know how hard is too hard.


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