My pet rat bites me

Question
I got a pet rat (from petsmart, which was my first mistake) back in October.  When I first got him, I did some research on taking care and training rats.  I spent a lot of one on one time to allow him to get used to me.  I did what the books said, like holding a treat in the palm of my hand ... and washing my hands before handling him so he doesnt mistake my fingers as food.  

Anyways... when we are out of the cage, he doesnt allow me to touch him.  He will grab his treat and that is it!!!  He wont allow me to pet him or hold him!  And.. when in the cage, he 'attacks' my hand and bites me.  I have to hurry and get his bowl to put food on so I do not get bit.  

I was told that rats were amazing pets... but I can not have any type of relationship with mine and it is frustrating.  I have done everything I know to do!  What else could I try???  Why is he like this??

Answer
They are amazing pets really, but sometimes they are not bred for health or temperment and may be aggressive.  I trust trained a wild rat that was a biter (I found her as a baby) and it took a good week of trust training her before she got the message.  

I am sure your scared of him, which is normal. Rat bites are no fun. I was bitten once really bad when I was stupid enough to try to break up a fight between two angry males and wow did it hurt. I had also rescured four lab rats that were terrified of humans, and rightly so, and they were all biters too.  I did my best to NOT show any fear at all, and would just push them aside and say "oh knock it off rat, your not scary!"  I wont tell you that will work for you as this is not the norm, but the lab rats seemed to feel a bit intimidated by me and they backed off.  The wild rat was too head strong for that.  Please go to my personal site, sandyscrittercity.com and refer to the page on shy or biting rats and how to trust train them.  I have instructions on how to go about training them.

I am going to assume he lives alone too, which can be a problem, and can contribute to a rats aggression if they are lonely. Rats are very very social animals and Petsmart should make sure they tell customers that rats should be sold in same sex pairs but they dont tell people this because half of the people that work at these places have no clue about rats at all.

You MAY need to neuter him to be honest if things dont change. He may have natural aggression due to poor breeding, but over time I do think he will come around to trusting you.

Please check out my website for starters and after you read it, get back to me at my private email at sandsycrittercity@yahoo.com or find me by going to the feed back page to reach me also.

For now though do NOT let him know your scared of him, but I am thinking you may not be doing that if you still try to pick him up. Does he attack you in the cage too, going for your hands or does he hide from you?

Also, sometimes even a bad diet can make them aggressive and if your using a seed mix from petsmart or any pet store, toss it and check out my page on proper diet too.  If your already following a proper diet, scratch the idea that he isnt getting adequate nutrition. :0

Looking forward to helping you try to break him of this, because I have had rats for years and in fact once you go to my site, check out the ABOUT ME page and you can see my story about my own rats.  I am without rats at the moment, losing my last rat a few weeks back and I am so lonely without my rats I dont know what to do with myself at down time.  I have two babies on reserve at a breeders but they were just born a few weeks ago and we have to wait for weaning, which is a few more weeks yet. I am super anxious to get my two new boys!  They are smart, slick, deep thinkings, loving and sometimes independent, other times, very needy, esp if they are ailing. I hope you can bond with him, but dont give up on him, its not his fault by any means, its the breeders fault and these pet store breeders dont give a hoot about how they breed back to back to back, pumping out rats for profit only, nothing more.  Its disgusting.