Tips For Taming A Pet Rat

Pet rats are extremely loving and friendly creatures, provided that they have been tamed.. which can literally be as easy to do as to have contact with humans. Rats love to be around people, sit with them and be handled, without this interaction with humans rats can either get depressed or angry and therefor, vicious.

The most likely reason for bitting and intentional clawing is for the rat to have not been raised properly and still being untamed towards people. Don't worry, this is an easy fix, although the older the rat is the harder it is to gain the trust of the rat, which is needed in order to begin a relationship with not only a pet rat but with anyone or anything... trust is the key.

Unlike a dog where when it would bite, you would yell at it, tell it that it was a bad dog... spray it with water, smack it on the nose.. whatever method you would use... these do not work with rats. One thing people hardly ever take into consideration is that rats are smaller creatures, even a dog can be threated by the size of a human... yet rats are a LOT smaller.

Taming a rat is taken in a completely different approach then other animals such as cat or dogs, with the a cat or dog you teach the animal how to understand and respond when doing an unwanted behavior, with a rat you simply gain the trust of the rat and take slow baby steps towards the taming of your fury friend.

If your rat is biting whenever you pick them up, or even if you are unsure that they will bite the first step to do is to find a clean towel you can use to pick up the rat, even if you think the rat will not bite you at first I still recommend getting a towel simply for the fact that if the rat does bite it will be more traumatic to both you and the rat if someone gets hurt, making it almost impossible for the two of you to get into a good friendship with one another.

Simply use the towel to gently pick up the rat from around the waist, and quickly have the rat supported in your hands (with the towel covering your hands) so the rat can feel ground under it's tiny feet. A stable environment is better then hanging in mid air... how sociable would you be hanging in mid air?

Once that rat is in one of your hands slowly use the other to pet the rat with your bare hand... from in between the ears on the top of the head to the tail slowly... and only pet from the ears to the tail, stroking backwards is uncomfortable for the rat. Do not try to pet the little nose of the rat before you have gained your rats trust... this is often the perfect time to bite and attack you if you startle the little pet.  Continue holding and stroking the rat for between 5 and 10 minutes spending on how much the rat wants to get away from you... the worse the rat is reacting to the taming process the less time you should have the rat out for.

Doing this action for a week or two your rat should get used to you in no time... once this happens you may start approaching your pet rat barehanded.

Here are a few more tips of things you can do to help tame your rat faster:

• Hand feed treats
• Put you rat's cage out where you are
• Sit and watch and talk to your rat in a calm voice for a little while each day

Remember that if rats are not handled often the can become untamed quicker then they can be tamed, keeping your rat out and holding it for 10 minutes a day can prevent a rat from moving backwards in the taming process even can keep a healthy relationship going with you pet!

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