www.alienrat.co.uk:Fifiboi

A rat with a morphing name. Fitting as he is a changed rat. We got him in June 2006, he was 10 months old then. The breeder who had him decided against breeding from him and had him neutered due to very aggressive behaviour then she asked us if we wanted him to come live with our girls. I said ok! He is a gorgeous boy. He wasn't happy at first, very nervous and scared, still aggressive, he did bite me, so I spent loads of time with him, letting him get used to me. Whenever one of us got near the cage he foofed and shuffled his feet, wagged his tail and hit the bars of the cage with his hands. He wasn't happy with visitors! To avoid being bitten again, I just took the top of his cage off, and took the entire igloo out of the cage with him inside, and carried him to the bed. And we watched movies, we read. I read to him. I just let him come to me. He let me stroke him and he cuddled up to me when outside the cage. He was fine, just a bit overprotective of his cage. He eventually chilled out a bit and became more sociable. We slowly introduced him to our other rats. At first they were scared of him. Then eventually, they were ok. So one night they all went in the cage. The following morning, we discovered he had badly wounded our old girl Eva and she required emergency surgery to repair the wound. So he had to come out again as he clearly didn't play well with others. More intros. We moved house later that summer. New house, new smells, totally neutral territory. He went in the cage one night at play time and that was it. And ever since, he has been a permanent resident of the group cage. He is a thinker, a bit of a worrier, he is a sweet boy, he still foofs at strange people occasionally, but he is quite soft really, and still a little nervous, but nothing like the boy who first came here. He is a new Rat :)