Isamu Rats
Isamu Rats
  • Isamu Home
    • Who, What, Why?
  • Meet the rats
    • Loved and lost - past rats
  • Joining the Isamu Family
    • Current and Planned Litters
    • Past Litters
    • Varieties expected at Isamu
  • Rat Care at Isamu
  • Contact us
  • Links and useful places
  • Rat Information and Care
  • Thinking about Pet Rats
    • Getting your First Rats
  • Starting out with Rats
  • Rat Habitat
    • Choosing Bedding
    • Choosing Substrate
    • Choosing Cages
    • Choosing Accessories
    • Cage Enrichment
    • Setting up a Cage
  • Behaviour
    • Individual Rat Behaviours
    • Rats Interacting with Other Rats >
      • Rats Fighting, Aggression and Dominant Behaviour
    • Introducing Rats >
      • The Carrier Method
      • The Neutral Space Method
      • The Heavy Supervision Method
      • The Cage Swap Method
    • Rat Noises
    • Rats and their humans >
      • Rats Biting Humans
      • Training your rats
    • Rats interacting with their enviroment
    • Rats interacting with other animals
  • Feeding and Nutrition
    • Options for Dry Mixes
    • Vegetables and Fruits
    • Foods to avoid or limit
    • Fresh and Wet meals
    • Suppliments and Treats
    • Feeding for different Times of Life
    • Enrichment Feeding
    • Feeding FAQS
  • Condition
    • Judging Condition
    • Fixing condition issues
  • Health
    • Health Checking
    • Common Illnesses >
      • Kidney Issues
      • Hind Leg Degeneration
      • Heart Failure
      • None Cancerous Tumours
      • Abscesses
      • Respiratory Issues
      • Cancerous / Malignant Tumours
      • Parasites
    • Quarentining

Patience Method

​What is it: This approach aims at slowly building trust with rats and allowing them to make the first move. 
Why: This method works on the principle that by allowing the rat to take the first steps you gradually build a relationship that is very much trust filled and mutual.
Strengths: This can work particularly well with rats who are nervous or shy or those who freeze regularly under the Confidence method. 
Weaknesses: This doesn’t work particularly well with rats who aren’t curious about humans (so may never make the first move).  It can also backfire in situations where you have particularly dominant rats who can then see you as a push over and may become problematic in later life.
Hints and Tips: A rat bag or hoody with nice large front pocket can be useful for this.  Put the rats in and spend time with your hand resting with them.  Going out for trips to different and scary smelling locations can be used to encourage scared rats to see you as a safe retreat and so bond better   In extreme cases starting out with something along the lines of T Touch can work well to familiarise a particularly scared or defensive animal with the idea and benefits of being touched​
Picture

How to use this

  1. Once they have settled into the cage you offer your hand to them, let them sniff it on their own terms, this can sometimes mean getting comfy with your arm draped into the cage and spending some time like this.  Eventually the rat will approach, sniff nervously then leg it. 
  2. Keeping this up for a while will often lead to the rat increasing in confidence as it realises you are not going to hurt it.
  3. You can speed up this approach by offering food stuffs on your hand or a spoon (depending on how keen the rats are to use their teeth).  Soft foods like cottage cheese or yoghurt work well as they can’t be taken and run off with, they need to be licked off.  In some more extreme cases a rat will be too nervous even for this to work and it may be necessary to just spend time talking to them softly, but otherwise not approaching them until they seem ready.
  4. Once a rat responds to this approach move to encouraging them to move out onto your hand, bringing them close to your body when they do to help them feel secure but leaving an escape route back to the cage if they want.  This works particularly well if you can position the cage next to a rat safe area like a sofa and spend time encouraging them to come out. With some rats this can take days, with others minutes.  If you can’t do this then tempt the rat into a tube or cube bed and carry them to a rat safe area for interim free range  
Proudly powered by Weebly