# so how can u tell when rat is bruxing (happy) or teeth chattering (angry)?



## mameur

I can never tell the difference since ive never had an angry rat before or scared. My old 3 boy crew were orphans who were hand fed and given to us at the age of 3 weeks, I believe they saw me and my girlfriend as parent figures, they groomed me from the start and were comfortable staying on my shoulder so i never had to force them to do anything and we heard lots of bruxing never any hissing or anger towards us never challenged us complete angels.

Now with these two new guys who are adjusting to their new environment and copping with the seperation of their family and somewhat forced to be handled by a 200lbs giant, i don't know if they were bruxing or angry with me I'm wondering if teeth chattering is usually followed by something such as biting clawing etc..

so here's the scenario,

blue is the shyest of the 2 he hides wherever he can he's also very tiny so he hides extremelly well. so when i tried immersion on him he kept running away until i finally got him i had to do the same with titan who kept running away too so i hugged him and provided them with heat and cover, they struggled a lot for a bit, like they always does but then calmed down he started chattering their teeth with passive shaking then when they calmed down I let go of any pressure my hands were exercicing on them they stayed there for a few minutes then titan walked away slowly and grabbed a piece of dark chocolate chip i offered him before.

Here's the surprising part blue stayed there and actually got more comfortable then after a few minutes slept in between the covers of my shirt a few minutes later he woke up with a " what the **** am i doing here !!" look on his face and stared at me for a few minutes sniffing me then he came out of the cover i had made climbed closer to me and just layed flat and bowing down completely calm and relaxed like i have never seen him before i wish i had my phone on me to show you guys what i mean but i didnt want to ruin the moment. then he suddenly got up and walked away to groom his companion and whenever i tried to get close again they would run away from me again. but the teeth chattering ive heard on many occasions last night from both of them along with passive shaking here and there

A few things i'd like to add is 
-they rarely squeak it happens sometimes when i forcefully try to pick them up but never when theyre in my arms.
-they never bit me.
-they never groomed me( which means i'm still an outsider)
-they don't mind being petted but they run away if my hand is trying to grab them.
-in just one day blue is a lot less jumpy. 
-they are both in a very calm environment.
- both sessions of immersion were a minimum of 5 hours 
-blue accepts treats sometimes but a lot less then titan so its hard to bribe him.

My main questions are 
1)were they annoyed or were they happy? 
2)Is teeth chattering usually followed by something else such as squeaking, bitting, hissing etc..
3)was blue submitting himself to me.
4) i know it takes time but am I doing this immersion program right?

I'll try and post of vid of it tonight i'm planing for a veryy VERyyyyy long session tonight any pointers are appreciated. 

Thank you guys!


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## mameur

ok did a bit of extra digging and found an answer don't know if im doing this immersion thing right i was reading about forced socialization and it kinda looks exactly like what i was doing with them Anyone who can try and clarify the difference??


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## mameur

and blue is very weird he was running away from me all day then all of a sudden comes out of nowhere and snuggles me then falls asleep on me






then when its time to put him back in his cage he suddenly doesnt trust me anymore and we free ranged together from 7 pm to 4 am im exhausted he came and snuggle thats a first step but he also acts like he doesnt know me anymore once he's back in his cage


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## Rat Daddy

I've never personally head of a rat chatter his teeth when angry or annoyed. Mostly it's just bruxing. Angry rats puff up their fur and they pretty much set about biting you. Rats aren't big on warnings.

And yes, you sound like you are making good progress. If your rats are napping on you they do trust you. When a rat joins a pack it usually sleeps with it's new packmates so hunker down and snuggle, don't be afraid to pet and skritch your napping rattie and talk to it softly. Time spent napping together is time spent bonding and it is part of many immersions and it it should be considered time well spent.

Immersed rats should be submissive in that they communicate with you and look to you for protection and guidance, but they don't become zombie tribbles. They are still going to play with each other and explore.

Forced socialization has as it's strength the part where you initiate interaction but falls short in that it doesn't require you to respond to your rat's needs or build lines of communication with your rat based on it being an intelligent and emotional being. At it's core forced socialization views your rat as a passive non-participant, rather more of a victim of your intentions. It's pretty much like the old method of horse breaking. Immersion does rely on the human initiating first contact and opening the channels of communication by persistence, but from that point forward it relies on the human to observe what the rat is telling him and to respond appropriately. An immersed rat sees you as another intelligent being like itself that's sending and receiving messages and assuming the role of it's pack alpha. A forced socialized rat basically learns humans are big and pushy and it's easier to go along than to fight back. 

People with immersed rats often report that their rats are smarter, friendlier, more loving and more competent, I would suspect that immersed rats would say the same thing about their human alphas.

It's not just that immersion works faster, which is easy to quantify. People with immersed rats report actually winding up with better rats for the experience... that's not quantifiable but I've experienced how well it has worked for my rats who are both very competent, loving and intelligent and just a little more independent than I would like. 

It's actually rather odd how much immersion has changed the landscape of rat socialization... after several hours most people have made great progress with their rats, usually in a single day. If you go back through the threads only a year or so before immersion, you had people who still had hostile, reclusive, frightened, or even biting rats after weeks or months using the old methods and other people telling them to be more patient or to neuter their rats... I realize we've cut the socialization process from weeks to hours, but it still takes some patience and commitment to get through the process. 

Not to worry, it's just about at the point where you start feeling unsure of yourself that both you and your rats will 'get it' and you will have bonded. Then you work with your rats every day to teach them their names and their commands and to build on the bond you started in immersion. Immersion isn't the end, rather it's only the beginning.


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## mameur

thank you rat daddy for clarifying. i think i was forcing them too much, im poking flipping them on their backs hugging tickling their bellies(they hate that in particular) titan i believe is immersed or on the verge he comes when called and hes fond of me i too them outside for the first time blue was scared of everything like usual but titan would leave on his own and come back to me of course i never left too big of a distance


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## Rat Daddy

First you establish your alpha status... this part might get aggressive depending on the rat, or it might be very playful... Then when the rat submits you give it hugs skritches and all of the tenderness you can muster to reward your new rat for joining the club.

Skritching or belly rubbing a rat doesn't make it submit, in fact it can't possibly make sense to a rat that attacking you. 

To clarify... People had always seen alpha rats grooming new initiates into their pack. They very much wrongly misinterpreted this behavior as the grooming being a show of control and dominance on the part of the alpha. In fact, it was never ever about that!!!! 

When we brought Amelia home, Fuzzy Rat was already old and way off her game, Amelia on the other hand was young lean, fast, big and strong. The rats boxed for less than 5 minutes and the Amelia stood up on her hind paws and pushed Fuzzy Rat with one paw, Fuzzy Rat tipped over like a cow and Amelia groomed her lovingly and patiently while Fuzzy Rat closed her eyes and just napped and enjoyed the belly rub. This was a lightbulb moment for me, the grooming wasn't a dominance thing, it was a bonding ritual. Fuzzy Rat just accepted that Amelia was bigger and stronger and made peace. Amelia responded as any rat should and groomed her to accept her friendship. After that they frolicked around the immersion area with Amelia following Fuzzy Rat around. Amelia never became Fuzzy Rat's alpha, they just became friends.

So basically the sequence of events is first you establish your authority *then* when your rat shows it's ready to submit you love on it to welcome it to your pack. Skritching a rat's belly is NOT a way of showing it who's boss, it's a way of welcoming a *submissive* rat into your pack and reinforcing your bond.

I know that sometimes it gets confusing... Immersion theory is actually a very radical new approach to rat socialization based on rats being intelligent and emotional creatures with a language of their own and a certain predispositions to expect certain things under certain circumstances. Like humans rats are a blend of instinct and learning. And immersion takes full advantage of both. But I only introduced immersion on this Forum about a year ago and then only in dribs and drabs as I only intended to help a few people with their problem rats not change the foundation of how folks understood their rats... So there are still lots of older threads out there and lots of the old misconceptions that are dying hard. It's easy to find certain parallels between immersion, trust training and forced socialization, but like Linux and Windows can have similar desktops, the core operating system is very different. 

When a rat is ready and AFTER it has accepted you as its alpha, it will have no problems with getting it's belly rubbed or at least being skritched by you. As a matter of fact that's how it knows it's being accepted into your pack.


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## mameur

well here's my situation with blue, he will never fight me or show aggressiveness even when i am a bit aggressive he just squeaks a lot when he's bothered or annoyed and he runs away for the slightest thing. he might approach me after i start forcing him to hug me he just calms down after a while and he'll fall asleep in my hands then he walks around comes over on his own to me etc... still won't let me scoop him up thought but the second i get him back in his cage it's like everything resets for him and im the enemy again he hides in a tiny corner of the cage and wont budge i had to move my second water bottle and food bowl there because i was afraid he wasn't eating he seriously must of had a heck of a trauma he looks like a child that's been beaten most of his life i'm having difficulty associating in which category he falls into he's not semi-socialized yet he looks to me more like an unsocialized rat without the aggression issues no fighting on his part ever


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## Rat Daddy

I've seen similar behavior with seriously neglected rats. They make progress but then they kind of like they think it was all a dream. After a very successful immersion with our Amelia where she played and bonded with us and Fuzzy Rat she was fine coming out and didn't hide but sat frozen on my desk like a flowerpot afraid to move for fear of upsetting anybody. She learned commands but refused to explore. It took a few weeks to get her more comfortable with roaming around on her own and now she's very independent indoors and getting more comfortable outdoors.

Now once you have established a solid bond in immersion you are still going to have to keep working on Blue. As long as he's overall friendly and not afraid of you and interacts with you and naps on you, your immersion has been generally successful and you have a basis to build on. After 7 months with us Amelia still doesn't like skritches or hugs.... but she tolerates them. She's perfectly bonded and a great roomie for Fuzzy Rat and she will stand her ground and even get pushy if she wants something, but as she was neglected and possibly abused she has no basis to understand affection. She never had it as a pup, or as a young rat and now she's really confused by it. Sometimes she has lapses and lets me just hold and pet her, but then she wakes up and realizes that somehow tenderness is a bad thing.

With Blue you are going to have to try to be both aggressive to get through to him and gentle to show him you are his friend. Again it's all about tweaking your approach to what you rat needs not what you want him to be. And if he's really screwed up it will take some time for him to spread his wings... and he may never be the cuddly rattie other rats are. 

To be honest I've even seen super shy rats go through a hostile phase once they get over their initial terror and before they get friendly, just keep watching and communicating and deal with whatever personality presents itself. Be ready to adapt your approach based on how he untangles. A few days ago Amelia just started to dig under a big rock. Within half an hour she had dug a den large enough to disappear into. Now what changed in her mind to make her want an underground den at her age baffles me. But she is still healing and expanding her personality at well over 7 months from being the flowerpot rat. The day before the den digging incident she bruxed and boggled for the very first time in my arms. Its still a matter of overcoming a lifetime of neglect and abuse. I don't know if she will ever be snugly, but I'm not disappointed either way and I'm not giving up.


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## mameur

amelia sounds like blue makes sense i still doubt he'll ever be aggressive towards me just a feeling i get from him titan always wants to be with me and blue always wants to be as far away from me as possible lol ive got ratties on the two extremes i hope titan will eventually teach him to be more accepting of me eventually thought he has made tremendous improvement today he was a lot less skittish loud noises don't bother him as much and he does approach me for comfort more and treats a lot more now this is what he usually does when we free range -_- and he'll stay like this "hidden" position for pretty the whole time he's free ranging if i don't start poking at him and scooping him up he's an explorer only if i'm not around






here's a link to the vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxiL5DzeBKM&feature=youtu.be


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## Rat Daddy

The basic rule is that any rat that doesn't bite or hurt his roomie can be helped and improved. Long sessions make progress while short sessions reinforce bad behavior. It's only once you get your rat to try something new that he will discover he likes it.

And keep in mind, you rat is programmed to be an explorer and a member of your pack, it's right in his firmware. If something has him screwed up you can generally get him untangled with enough patience and effort.

Yesterday I tried to take a nap on my office floor for an hour... I was really tired so if I hit the bed I would have been down for the night... I had Amelia free ranging, she woke me twice by prying my mouth open and once grooming my whiskers and half woke me by walking all over me several times and when I did wake up I called her and she hopped right up on me so she was apparently napping right next to me while I was asleep. Not all bad for a damaged rat that doesn't like hugs or skritches. Now keep in mind she sat on my desk for weeks like a flowerpot afraid to move even after a successful immersion.


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