# help with my blind rat biting



## hannah1289 (Jun 6, 2012)

hey everyone! i was wondering if anyone has any experience in dealing with this and if it's possible to stop this behaviour.
i have 2 female rats who are about 1 and a half. one of them is blind, and she has a very sweet temperment. she's never done anything agressive before. the only real issue i've had with her is that she is quite shy, but she's gotten a lot better and is now used to me. 
since she has started being more comfortable approaching me and climbing on me, she has been biting me in a completely non-aggressive way. for example, she will be sitting on my arm and just kind of bite it like a piece of food, or she will sit on my shoulder and grab my earlobe. one time she even lunged at my face while i was eating a piece of fruit, so i have stopped eating while she is around me, but she still tries to bite. i am pretty certain she doesn't realise it's my skin that she's biting until she has gotten her teeth in there. it really sucks because i want her to be comfortable with me, but i can't have her climb on me when she keeps drawing blood, as it frightens her when it happens as well. 
if anyone has any advice or similar experiences, i'd love to hear!


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

I've had two very different rats and both very different from yours, but I might be of some small assistance here. One of my rats has exceptional eyesight and can identify people from over 50 feet away. The other had normal poorer ratlike eyesight. 

The rat with the better eyesight, prefers to be active during the day time and readily crosses wide open spaces and she is obviously uncomfortable in the dark. Whereas the rat with the poorer eyesight followed along walls, never crossed wide open spaces and was most active after dark.

To complicate matters just a bit, the nearsighted rat was the result of a recent back cross to a wild rat. So as much as she was the smartest most capable rat I have ever seen, she could switch between lovable fluff ball and viscious stone cold killer rat pretty much instantly. So we came up with a pretty simple set of rules that kept peace in the house.

1) No one ever touched or picked up the rat without first announcing ourselves. Once she knew who we were she was perfectly calm.
2) We always talked to her in a calm voice. As long as she heard a voice she recognized she seemed perfectly happy.
3) No one made any fast movements around her. Even if she was sitting on us we would move slowly and tell her what we were doing. This worked so well that after a little while, all we had to say was "up on hand" and she'd climb up on an open hand and never had to be grabbed (which would have been a very bad idea).
4) We always let her sniff us before picking her up. And she always sniffed an open hand before climbing up on it.

By constantly talking to her and using the same soothing words over and over she knew exactly what to expect and she made a perfectly safe pet. 

Of course if you accidently raised your voice just a little, she could evaporate into thin air and there was nothing you could do to find her for at least a few hours. And believe me you haven't seen anything until you've seen a wild rat on a tear.

Back to your problem, I'd try to keep talking to your rattie. Announce yourself, move slowly, use the same words to explain what you are going to do and maintain a gentle soothing tone. Always let her sniff your hand before touching her. Just because she's "blind" doesn't mean she can't see anything at all. Just because she's in your lap doesn't necessarily mean that it's *your* hand that's about to grab her. You may know your moving your head, but she doesn't necessarily know it's your face if it isn't making familiar soothing sounds. Also, be patient and safe, as every experienced snake handler will tell you, you never put a snake up to your face. Snakes are both low in intellegence and myopic, they may be very accustomed to being handled, but if they see two eyes and teeth heading straight for them some are likely to strike in self defense. Lastly try adjusting the lighting, perhaps very bright light will help her to see a little better, or the converse, very low light will help her feel more comfortable, seeing nothing might be better than out of focus blurry images.

As long as blindness is your rattie's only problem, you should be able to work this out.

Good luck


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## cagedbirdsinging (May 28, 2012)

The above advice is great. I'd like to add that a good idea if/when she does bite again is too make an audible "eep!" The goal is to try to replicate the sound that the rats themselves make when the playing gets too rough. It's a simple "stop" in rattie language.


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## hannah1289 (Jun 6, 2012)

thanks guys! i will definitely try those out


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