# Barbering?



## twizzle (Aug 6, 2012)

One of my boys, Pickle, has suddenly taken to excessively grooming my older boy, Oliver... To the point where now, he has a bald patch on the back of his neck  the skin isn't damaged, and h doesn't seem bothered by the grooming. Pickle is the relatively new dominant male, as for a week or so Oliver was out of the main boys' cage due to illness... 

Anyway, I basically wanted to know if there's anything I can do to discourage this behaviour? My third boy isn't been affected at all but he's the same age as Pickle, so is more easily able to escape and has never seemed interested in being the boss of the group! If there are any tips of anything I can do, I'd love to know  thanks!


Sent from my iPhone using Petguide.com Free App


----------



## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

Rats really are very bright, and if you can somehow convince Pickle that you don't approve of his behavior he might stop. As rats don't speak English and most of us don't speak rat getting this kind of a complex message across isn't necessarily going to be easy and pretty much every rat in every human tends to come up with a slightly different translation paradigm.

So the good news is that if you try hard enough you might be able to stop the behavior, the bad news is that there is no guaranteed method that I know of that will work on every rat. As a matter of fact we might work on one rat will have the precisely opposite effect on another.


----------



## HelloClarice (Feb 1, 2012)

Clicker training maybe?

Just a thought, you could find a favorite treat and use that as a reward whenever he and oliver are together when no grooming is happening, of course clicking at the same time. this is my initial thoughts, I'm going to try and do clicker training for the rats and the cat we shall see =]

Alisa, Clarice and Nibs


----------



## twizzle (Aug 6, 2012)

I'm trying to give Pickle the message, but he doesn't tend to do it so much when we're around anyway! I don't know if he just doesn't realise that he's being too rough as he generally loves to groom everyone to death on a routine basis!


Sent from my iPhone using Petguide.com Free App


----------



## Rat Daddy (Sep 25, 2011)

I'll go along with that. I really doubt that Pickle means any harm to Oliver. And honestly, "don't barber Oliver" is not a command that translates easily into rat language. The fact that he does it less when you're around tells me he's either preoccupied with you were realizes he's doing something wrong. About half an hour ago I turned around to catch my big fat wire munching tail dragger with my brand-new USB cable in her mouth. As soon as she saw me turn around and the look on my face she dropped the cable. So there's no doubt in my mind that she knows better but for reasons well beyond my understanding chomps wires anyway. Apparently, "don't eat my USB cable" doesn't translate very well into rat language either.

Now my tail dragger is particularly stubborn and thick as a brick when she doesn't want to learn something. She's spoiled and likes to get her own way. I sat next to her on the floor repeating "no eating the carpet" and tapping her head with my finger for about five minutes before she stopped tearing up the carpet. Most rats aren't likely to ignore you and the obvious discomfort of being repeatedly tapped on the head before changing their behavior. She finally did weeble away looking thoroughly disgusted with me, but she hasn't torn up any carpet since. So, if my big fat old tail dragger can still learn I'm sure Pickle can get the message if you can figure out how to get through to her.

I'm not entirely sure that bopping your rat in the head is a textbook training method. But I watched my five-year-old daughter do it and it seemed to work a treat. Obviously, were talking about bopping very gently and with love in your heart. If you find yourself looking for a baseball bat when you rat is misbehaving you're seriously missing the object of the exercise. There's a fine line between physical communication and rat abuse, you're best off being annoying and repetitive and way off base if you think that training has something to do with inflicting pain or injury. I just want to be clear, because all kidding aside, rats are very small and delicate animals and it doesn't take much to hurt them and if you hurt them the only thing that they are likely to learn is to hate you.


----------

