Pet Forum / Mammals / Rats / April 2008

We recently moved, and since then Hera's been nippy through the bars
of the cage. It's only through the bars; she's fine when she's out, or
when the cage door is open. It's clearly a deliberate territorial nip,
rather than any kind of oops-I-thought-you-were-food.

My best guess is that she's finally become the dominant rat in the
cage, and has been testing to see if that dominance extends over the
humans, too. I have demonstrated to her that I won't put up with
having my fingers nipped (by flipping her over when she does it), so
she's quit trying to bite me. But she hasn't generalized to other
humans. Now, I could just repeat the if-you-bite-you-get-flipped-over
with the rest of the humans, except that they persist in sticking
their fingers in the cage when I'm not there to correct the behavior.
Which means Hera keeps getting shown that she can bite through the
cage, and the fingers will go away, and therefore that that behavior
does exactly what she wants it to -- and she's not going to stop as
long as it has results she likes.

So how do I convince the humans to quit putting their fingers in the
cage? These are all adults -- my husband and frequent visitors.
They've been told not to stick fingers in the cage. There's a sign on
the cage as a reminder. They get *bitten* when they stick fingers in
the cage. They still do it. What else can you do to convince people to
stop doing stupid things?

--Theresa

http://tiger_spot.mapache.org