Socializing Pet Rats

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Laura Fitzgerald and on behalf of Expert Village, I would like to talk to you today about the care and maintenance of your pet rat. Now I am going to talk to you about getting to know your rat. This is Tar, he is about eighteen months old, I had him since he was a very little baby. As you can see Tar is very comfortable with being with me, and me holding him in my arms, he does almost anything for me that I ask of him, he is very intelligent, he comes to me, he wags his tail if I pet him, he sleeps with me and cuddle with me. They make wonderful pets and they are very loving. But getting to know them takes quite awhile. Once you go and get a baby rat, you know you could be a big monster for them, they do have to be careful because you could be a predator or prey to them, so they are very shy to begin with. The first thing you want to do when you get your rat is that you want to be really careful in getting to know you, let them sniff you, let them come to you first. Offering them small bits of food also encourages them to be friendly, see how they want to come to you and just eat? You are offering them food, it's a treat, it's positive reinforcement, it is showing them that you are kind a good and that you want to give them some thing, so that makes them happy. And they are going to continue to come to you every time that you offer them food. And as you see, they don't bite, they just want to take the food from you and they are very happy to continue eating and looking for more. It is almost like a bribe to get your rat to like you. Once you do this, every time that you go to offer them food, call their name, Tar, and then offer them food. And after awhile he will realize that when you call his name, he is going to get a treat. So it is positive reinforcement to come and get what he likes. And come to his name. After awhile, just moving your fingers in front of him, he is going to think that you are offering him food and he is going to come to you. You can also get them to do tricks this way, like walking through a tube or going into a box or climbing up on to his cage. As you can see, they are just coming back more and more, and they will not bite the hand that actually feeds them. They are very clean, as you see, they hold their food and carefully eat their food and they will also spend some time washing their mouth and washing their face after they have eaten. They love this cheese, cheese is their most favorite foods to eat, just be careful in moderation because cheese can make them fat."