if you enjoy my channel you may want to show your support by either checking out my merch store on Spreadshirt comm or becoming a patron via patreon comm both links are provided in the description many many many people have asked me how do you socialize a rap you may have recently gotten a pet rat that is extremely fearful and skittish perhaps they run away from you they squeal and tense up whenever you hold them and maybe they've even bitten you so today we're going to talk about how to socialize fearful and skittish rats I'm using my rat fear and as an example I'm not sure what fear ins background is or how he was treated before I got him but when he came to me he was probably the most fearful rat I've ever had he ran away and hid every time I came into the room he refused to take food from me he tensed up squealed and tried to squeeze his way out of my hands every time I picked him up he is now much better and tolerant of me and I'm going to talk to you about how I got him to where he is now as a quick example I'm going to compare him to my rat Cedric Cedric was very well socialized from the day he was born and loves attention and affection Theron does not let me do to him what I do with Cedric such as aggressive petting and wrestling Cedric absolutely loves playing these games but I don't think fear and will ever get to that point the first step I took was to let fear and have his space this is extremely important you don't want to make your rat do anything that they're not comfortable doing because they may in turn associate you with bad feelings if urine didn't want me to pick him up if it wasn't necessary I wouldn't the next step requires a lot of patience patience is the most important part of socializing a fearful rat I let fear and come to me on his own terms I would sit in the playpen with all of my boys and fear and would see them coming up to me playing on me climbing on me and letting me pet them eventually fear and realize that if the other rats were comfortable with me maybe I wasn't so scary I let fear and approached me and when he would I didn't touch him or talk to him if I tried to pet him or speak to him he would immediately run away so I allowed him to sit on me explore me and sniff me while I sat very very still it took almost four months of letting him do this nearly every day before he finally would allow me to pet him without tensing up and running away yes you heard me right four months it may not take your rap that long it may take longer it all depends on how skittish your rat is and what kind of experiences they had before they came to you once Ferran was comfortable with me everything else was a breeze as soon as he realized that I wasn't going to hurt him or harm him in any way he began letting me hold him carry him for short periods of time and pet him he will still occasionally walk away or try to get away from me whenever I'm petting him but when he does I allow him to do so so that he doesn't become anxious and feel like I'm trapping him now he will sit patiently on my lap not only allowing me to pet him but he will enjoy it as you can see he's sitting on my lap bruxing happily as I stroked him this is a huge step from where he was before don't think that just because you pick your rat's up and hold them every day they will become comfortable with you a rat that is fearful and doesn't like to be touched may at most tolerate being touched they will not come to trust you just because you've never hurt them if a rat does not like being touched or held and you try to hold them every day without taking these steps towards trust they may wind up associating you with having bad feelings and must become even more skittish patience is the key to ensuring that your rat will warm up to you it may take a long long time but the results are extremely worth it letting your rat make the decision to approach you and become comfortable with you and allowing them the opportunity to walk away from you if they want to is ensuring that your rat will trust you and understand that you're not going to hurt them harm them or trap them I hope that seeing fear and sit on my lap and Brooks gives you some hope for your skittish rats he has come a long way from squealing every time I touched him so I hope that this helps you to take the right steps and know that eventually even if it takes a long time your rat will form a bond with you and love you if you have any questions feel free to ask in the comments and don't forget to subscribe