# Rat Biting



## Wake (Sep 29, 2012)

I've had my rats for about a month and a half now, they're always with me, one has never bit me, yet the other is quite different. I got them from a little pet store who gets them from a breeder, they handle them every so often. They don't seem related, due to the dumbo/normal ears they have. My brown hooded dumbo is perfectly tame and inquisitive, like most girls are, but my roan, or "husky" seemed to always be the more skittish and shy one, it also happens that she is the more dominant of the two and seems older.
Sometimes when I stroke her, she will flick around quickly as if angered that I stroked her and bite me, not hard enough to draw blood. I've read that it can be warnings, telling me to stop, or dominance biting, yet I'm not sure which, or how to stop it from happening, because it can be quite upsetting as she seems very frustrated about me stroking her - the other loves her strokes however.
One thing that is weird about it is that whilst she's nestled in her hammock she loves more than ever for me to stroke her, boggling at it and all, so it can't be all the time that she's annoyed with me stroking her. When I stop stroking her whilst she's in her hammock she looks at me like "why did you stop?"
Another thing with her is that she wasn't used to being picked up a lot when I first got her, and due to me picking her up a lot more she would squeak sometimes, she very rarely squeaks anymore though unless she's doing something interesting when I pick her up, a little protest squeak, then she accepts it.

Long story short:
Is there any way I can stop her from seeming so irritated by me stroking her and act the same way as she does whilst in her hammock? I got both her and her cagemate together and is there any way I can make her react in a way similar to her friend whilst being stroked?
Why is she suddenly fine with and adores being stroked in her hammock, yet is beyond angry some other times I stroke her?

Thanks in advance, I've been searching all over for a story like this.

Seriously, it's like she's saying "How dare you stroke me!"


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## Pixxie (Jun 3, 2012)

It could be a warning nip, saying "I don't like that, stop". Where are you petting her when she does this?


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## Wake (Sep 29, 2012)

Between her shoulders, around her back, I can also pet her around her sides too and she'll do it, like it ticks her off.
I thought it'd be like that, I'm not sure why she'd not like me stroking her though, the other one's completely fine with it. Any idea how to make her like being stroked there?


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

First let me remark that when your rat bites you it draws blood. Rats have terribly strong jaws and very sharp teeth and when you get bit for real you know it. My neighbor had a run-in with my wild type rat and by the time I got there his hand was wrapped in a bloodsoaked towel. He had just come back from the Middle East and he was a special ops soldier, I'm pretty sure he was too embarrassed to make a big deal over it, but there was no doubt that this skirmish went to the rat.

On the other hand, rats will use their teeth to communicate. This isn't actually biting per se. Still, it's a behavior that needs to be discouraged. I find that most rats understand a loud vocalization such as you yelling "No" to mean that you disapprove of something they are doing. In the singular case when I got bit by my wild type girl, and mainly I got bit by accident because she was trying to kill a mouse that I was holding in my hand and I turned my hand to block her, she pretty much realize the behavior was unacceptable somewhere between the profanities I was screaming at her, my reflex that launched her into the air, her hitting the wall at the far side of the room, her sliding down the wall, her hitting the floor and her coming right back to me to apologize. After the incident, and I had bandaged my hand, and recovered the mouse (also launched into the air), I pretty much realized it was an accident, and she pretty much realized she had done something really wrong, so she snuggled in my lap for quite a while and everything was forgotten.

Actually it wasn't entirely forgotten. My hands bled for a while. It hurt a lot. I never handled small animals when she was on my shoulder again. But most of all, she never bit me again.

Now, in retrospect, and under any circumstances when you're not in searing pain, it is generally a very bad idea for you to toss your rat at the wall. In fact, there are many more appropriate levels of negative reinforcement that should work just about as well. 

Let's move on beyond the biting issue, in your case your rat is most likely trying to communicate with you and perhaps she really doesn't like to be stroked when she's out of the cage. There really is no way of knowing what happened to her at the pet shop before you got her. She may have a very good reason for her behavior. Again, using my wild type rat is an example there was a very specific protocol we had to follow to introduce her to a new person. First, the person had to speak to her, she responded by turning her attention to the new person. Then the new person had to make their hand available to be sniffed, she would respond by sniffing the hand and tapping their fingers with her paw. After that introduction, she was perfectly fine with being scritched or petted. Usually, we didn't encourage other people to hold her.

The point I'm making is that not all rats are created equal, sometimes you just have to do things their way. There were things that my five-year-old daughter could do with my wild type rat that I wouldn't dream of trying. For example, my daughter could just pick her up, whereas I always let her climb up on my hand. And obviously, she let me handle her and play with her even though she was literally dangerous to strangers. I can go on, in fact, our relationship with our wild type rat was truly wonderful, but like traversing a minefield there were lots of little do's and don'ts and odd's little rituals that made everybody happy.

I suppose, on the positive reinforcement side of things, you could give your girl a treat and while she is chomping on it you might get away with a little petting.

So basically, there's a few things to consider. First, it's important to always discourage biting behavior. Second, you might just have to do things the way your rat wants them done. And third, over time you might be able to convince her that being petted is not a bad thing. Just remember, if she really bites you because you pushed her too hard or too far it's an experience you won't soon forget.


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## TheRatPack8 (Dec 10, 2012)

*I think I can Help *

She just needs to be worked with. I have a rat who I got from a small petstore and she was VERY skittish and squeaked and ran from me every time I tried to hold her. She didn't have the biting issue that your rat has but my other rats like to get a little rough with each other and I used a squirt bottle to stop that. What I'm suggesting is to stop this behavior by squirting her whenever she nips you with a firm "no." Make sure you don't yell though.

Look on this site, http://www.curiousv.com/curiosityrats/files/infopsych.html I copied and pasted the parts I thought would pertain to your specific situation but this site has a TON of good ideas and tips for stuff like this.

*Biting people:* You reach down to pick up your rat, and he turns around and bites you HARD. Why do rats bite? Well, think about the situation... Did your hand smell like food? Even soap is food for a rats, and rats have poor vision. Is the rat in a new environment, young, or otherwise stressed? If so, the bite was likely out of fear. Many rats, especially from pet stores, are not properly handled and socialized and will see you as a threat, a potential predator. You will need to work with such a rat to earn his or her trust by using treats and a soothing voice and not touching him unless he initiates it. Is there a chance he's injured? Animals sometimes don't show pain at all. Examine him for cuts, bruises or other injuries. Wounded rats do bite from pain. If your hand smells like another rat or he seems to be biting for no reason, it may be hormonal. Neutering may help. Otherwise, wash your hands thoroughly and handle him very slowly, never startling him or making any quick movements. Some rats are very threatened by people. Again, if this is a female, she may be aggressive because of pregnancy or she may be protective if she has a litter. Try not to handle or stress her too much. 

*Crime & Punishment:* The most important thing to remember is to never "punish" a rat. Rats are animals whose nature is to fear large things. It is only through gentle actions and generations of domestication that they can trust you to some degree. Any yelling will scare them. They will not understand you are upset for something they did, only that you are angry and are threatening and possibly dangerous. Any physical scorning is even worse. Rats do not link anger to improper behavior; they link it to attack and predation. Such discipline can work on dogs and cats because they are not prey animals and because mother dogs and cats discipline their offspring with a growl or nip. Rats do not have this in their vocabulary. Bad behavior CAN be discouraged in other ways that do not break the trust or scare your rats. You do this by separating yourself from unpleasant consequesnces and by making such consequences unpleasant. A spray bottle can be used to break up fights or stop any behavior when it is happening. Even if the water doesn't bother them, rats will eventually stop to clean themselves and you can "rescue" them from a bad situation. To discourage chewing certain things such as clothing, carpets, furniture, etc., a bitter spray (sold as "Bitter Apple" or "Bitter Lime") may help discourage this, but remember that rats do not always taste what they gnaw. Rodent incisors are placed far away from their tongues and gnawing behavior is not related to eating. Double-sided tape can be placed around "off-limits" areas such as flower pots or electronic equipment. As you can see, with this type of discipline, learning is very direct, non-threatening, and not something a rat can connect to you.


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

Actually, to be a little more specific, aversion training isn't punishment. In fact, I was a psychology major back in the 1970's where operant conditioning was all the rage, and the entire theory was based on rat behavior. Negative reinforcement was very effective.... but it wasn't punishment. 

Simply put a rat finds a certain behavior to have unpleasant consequences and therefore stops doing it. First of all in order for a rat to associate a certain behavior with an unpleasant consequence they must occure simultaniously. So.... if she finds that while chewing the carpeting there's an annoying tapping on her head and her alpha human is making loud harsh sounding noises, and it stops when she does... she can associate the carpet chewing with undesireable consequences and won't do it again. Actually, I think rats are smart enough to know that you are upset. As they otherwise love and trust you, they realize the negative consequences are a result of their behavior and not capricious malice on your part. But in order to be entirely fair, rats can't associate their behavior with adverse consequences if they don't occur pretty much concurrently. In other words, you come home to find your rat has destroyed your favorite slippers, he greets you at the door and you lose your cool.... Well, the only thing your rat is going to associate your negative reaction with is his greeting you at the door. And he might stop doing that. When our latest rat came to us she would finger hold with her teeth, it was no where near nipping or biting, and all I had to do was say "no" or "don't" in a firm voice a couple of times for her to stop. But my reaction was immediate and concurrent with the behavior. 

One of my rats just tunneled into the bottom of the litter bag, making a real mess on the floor and chewed through a woolen blanket. I didn't see her do it and at this point, there's no way to punish her for it. There's no way to associate my reaction with her action so there's nothing she can learn from being "punished" at this point no matter how upset I am.

Rats are wired to associate unpleasant experience with avoidance. Rats eat something and feel sick afterwards and you can be very sure they are not going near that poison again. Alpha rats will dicipline their underlings if they do something to annoy them so rats can communicate using adversive reinforcement. By the way the same recency effect was found to work in humans and dogs. Punishing your kids for something they did ten years ago isn't likely to affect their behavior much, but they will think your a jerk. And I've seen dogs screwed up by people that punish them after the fact. In one household, when the dog did anything bad the family waited for dad to come home to dicipline "his" dog. All the dog learned was that dad was going to beat him when he came home. The dog became completely neurotic, started biting and had to be put down.

Negative reinforcement is a useful training tool for rats, people and dogs, but it has it's absolute limitations and if you do it wrong it has serious consequences.

Again, please, please understand this is an academic presentation of research data and in no way a recommendation for rat abuse! In fact I'd hope understand how negative reinforcement works and doesn't work might stop most people from trying it. It should be avoided under most normal circumstances and applied when nothing else will work and the behavior is serious enough to warrent it for the good of the animal. I might add that in most cases the same research proved that positive reinforcement, like treats, (and I'd add huggles and cuddles) worked much better to improve rat's, human's and dog's behavior.


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## TheRatPack8 (Dec 10, 2012)

Yes some of my rats are smart enough to know when I'm upset but some of them won't come near me when I yell and give me the cold shoulder for a couple says, I have to start all over with my rat splinter because she wasn't treated very well. I'm merely suggesting something that would not (hopefully) stress a skittish rat. 


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## Pixxie (Jun 3, 2012)

Wake said:


> Between her shoulders, around her back, I can also pet her around her sides too and she'll do it, like it ticks her off.
> I thought it'd be like that, I'm not sure why she'd not like me stroking her though, the other one's completely fine with it. Any idea how to make her like being stroked there?


It sounds like she is possibly taking this as a challenge if she is the more dominant of the two. So in effect, it is ticking her off. Positive reinforcement might work too if negative reinforcement isn't your style. If she lets you pet her in the spots where she normally bites you for it, give her a little bit of a treat. At first it will probably just be near the spot, but sooner or later she will come to associate you petting her with something good. It will probably work even faster with negative reinforcement. If she bites, spritz her with water. Anything that isn't particularly pleasant but not harmful would work. Mild annoyance should be the goal, not fear. The whole point is to associate biting with something she doesn't enjoy. It doesn't need to be harsh.


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## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

Two quck footnotes:

First: Healthy rats that bite their humans without provocation are not pets! If you can't fix this problem it isn't safe or fair to them to keep them as exhibits. Appropriate and mild negative reinforcement such as towel wrapping or gentle bopping can be the difference between becoming your new BFF and snake food for a rat especially when the rat won't accept positive reinforcement from you. Otherwise negative reinforcement should be more of an annoyance to the rat than an actual physical discomfort, if used at all.

Second: As to rats biting because they can't tell the difference between your hand and a treat is a myth that has been kicking around way too long. My rats will gingerly pick crumbs off my hand and lick cake frosting off my finger tips. With the exception of blind or demented rats, rats can tell the difference. In fact the first time I offered cake frosting to our newest rat on my finger she took my whole fingertip into her mouth felt my finger was under the frosting and didn't bite down. People that think their rats are repetatively biting them by accident are just going to get bit repetatively, no matter how many times they wash their hands. Unlike most rat myths this one actually gets people bit and rats euthenized. Once the biting behavior is appropriately addressed as intentional and corrected both the rat and the owner are likely to start a loving and long term relationship. Also, when you put your hand into your rats cage and it bites you, it's agression or fear or territorial behavior.... Your rat does not think you are a Twinkie. Even if you regularly shove Twinkies in through the cage door, your rat can tell the difference. 

As to moving slowly and cautiously, that's a double edged sword, it works with many rats, but other rats know that's how preditors strike. It's great advise about 70% of the time.

OK, to humor those last few holdouts... lets say .01% of the time you're dealing with a particularly stupid, demented or blind rat, and everything is possible with rats, I'd still say that it's better to treat biting as intentional behavior rather than risking another bite by testing the accidental bite theory by hand washing and getting bit again. It's better your rat learns not to attack food coming through the door than to learn it's ok to attack you.

I really am a soft touch with my rattie girls. And I love our rats, if your reading this you love your rats too or at least you want to love your rats. I absolutely hate the idea of using negative reinforcement of any kind and in any measure. But when done right it works and it can be used with restraint and love to fix certain expensive problems like carpet destruction if caught in progress or it can be used to save and instill pack order in a really screwed up pet shop rat in slightly stronger but still loving and non abusive measure.


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## Wake (Sep 29, 2012)

Since I last posted here, the biting's gotten worse, she draws blood now, and doesn't seem to want to let go. I've come to the conclusion, seeing as her sisters have never bit me, that there's something wrong here. I'm going to try going to the vets tomorrow, she's a lot fatter it seems like at the stomach than the other two sisters of hers, the biggest of them as well. She looks so uncomfortable, all the time, so I'll definitely make sure to go to the vets as soon as possible, hopefully they'll still be open with the Christmas holidays. She looks depressed though, it upsets me to watch her actually :/
The pet shop I got her at said there's no way she's pregnant, and they actually do treat their rats pretty good, all siblings of different litters with the same two parents, there's one guy there who knows a lot about them and he's in charge of their whole cage and stuff. He told me himself there would be no way she was.


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## Ratty859 (Dec 15, 2012)

That could explain the biting. I hope everyone is ok!



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## Pixxie (Jun 3, 2012)

If she isn't feeling well, she could be nasty towards everyone. Hopefully it is something fixable.


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## Gannyaan (Dec 7, 2012)

Please update us and let us know if she's preggers or sick... I really hope everything's ok. 


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## Wake (Sep 29, 2012)

Just got back from the vet, and despite her being squirmy as heck he noticed there was a "mass" in her abdomen, and not only that he listened to her heart and lungs and all that and said it sounded as if she had a lung infection, she has been sniffling for a little while and sneezing a bit. He also said because of her tensing it felt like she was indeed in pain.
So he prescribed her some antibiotics and pain relief medication. Now the only problem will be having her take it XD
He said I could dilute it with juice, which I did so for her first, managed the antibiotics, but she began catching on for the pain relief and in the end only took about half of it by licking it off my finger whilst it was mixed with apple juice. There's hope yet *fingers crossed*
I'll keep you updated on how she is.


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## ratclaws (Nov 11, 2012)

I don't mean to dishearten you but the same thing happened with my girlfriend's rat from before. It turned out she also had a mass and it ended up being her uterus riddled with tumours so she had to be put down (she was only 7 months as well). Obviously I'm not saying that's the case but a mass in the abdomen doesn't sound great. Is she not spayed then?


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## Wake (Sep 29, 2012)

Covered in bite marks from simply touching her now :/ it really upsets me more than it hurts, and it does, breaking the skin and stuff and making me bleed. 
No, she's not spayed.
Thanks for the story of your girlfriend's rats, sorry that happened, it'll prepare me more than anything I think from hearing it. Thanks.


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