Follow up on biting rat

Question
QUESTION: Hi. I wrote to you a lot before christmas about a 6 month old male who had had a personality change as soon as I brought him home from the shelter. I trust trained him but he kept running at me instead of away and I got some serious bites. I eventually had him neutered the day before christmas eve.
He continued to dive at the bars & snort at me for a while & putting food in his cage was a full scale operation!
After around 3 weeks I discovered an abcess so poor thing had his second vets experience of being left there. He squealed and showed his escape expertise as the vet examined him but he didnt bite us.Progress.
I spent a lot of time talking to him and kept him close by and he started to perch between the bars and his wheel. I couldnt resist a little touch of his tail as it hung through the bars, knowing he couldnt get his head around quick enough to bite me. He snorted at me and I thought really I was being selfish, I just wanted to touch him BUT he quite quickly stopped snorting and whipping his head round and would let me touch a paw too. As the days went on i could stroke his belly and scratch his rump and he stayed still and enjoyed it. He then started coming up to that spot and looking at me, asking for a fuss.
I re-commenced trust training and he continued to be petrified. The difference was that he was running away from me, not at me, in attack mode. So I took this as more progress.
Despite my best attempts he has managed to leap distances father than any rat I've known, as well as climbing sheer, no grip surfaces! Needless to say I ended up having to approach him, to rescue him from a dangerous situation. I will admit at this point, I was wearing thin gloves (inside out, for scent reasons)but didnt feel too afraid. I cooed at him and gently picked him up, he squealed and i just gently & slowly lowered him to the ground then left him be. He didnt bite me! Hurray. I gave him a treat and backed off. He did a similar thing again on another day-leapt over a metre up the door and balanced precariously on the door handle. I reluctantly rescued him, he squeaked in fear but didnt bite me. I backed off again, left him a treat.
Okay so as time went on he would some days climb up on my lap and take treats, let me give him a little stroke, other days he wouldn't come near me. Some times he would just take the treat, other times he would nip me and get put away. He was quite erratic but over all things were better and I thought i should just be persistant and patient and eventually he would come to trust me more and freak out less.
And then 2 nights ago he was by me, I gave him a little stroke and before he could get his treat he bit me- for real, like before his op. I was shocked. I still had my little gloves on but he meant business and had broken the skin through them. I tried to pick him up to put him in his cage and got more of the same until I got him in. I hadnt realised how unafraid of him and close to him I had come to be, until he did that and I felt that shock. To make it worse, the next morning I went to get his food bowl- clean slate, calm, no jumpy movements- and he leapt across the cage and did it again. As I withdrew my hand he was still attached to it and again he had broken the skin through my glove.
So now I don't know what to do. Just continue? It's not about the fact that it hurt more than the nips he sometimes gave, it's the difference between a quick scared nip as I'm stroking him or putting my hand towards him and making a concious effort to get from wherever he is, to me, so he can bite me as hard as he can. He looks and moves differently, he's in attack mode and I'm left feeling nervous of him again, which really upsets me.
I love him very much and am not only upset that I can't cuddle my boy, but that he is clearly very upset and maybe even depressed after doing it.
I've been sitting by his cage talking to him but he just looks so sad and confused and now I'm crying. I don't know why he did it.

ANSWER:
You may think I am insane............here goes.....

Ever think of pitching the gloves?  Obviously they are not stopping him from biting you and it hurts just the same as if he bit through the gloves.

I remember a while back during one of my animal behavior classes that gloves are a sign of mistrust and some smarter animals take this as a sign you dont trust them therefore they dont trust you.  

Have you ever handled him without the gloves?

At the vets....when he did NOT bite...who was wearing gloves? Anyone?

I am just trying to piece this together as to what triggers him so I figure lets start with the gloves.

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: At the vets, I was wearing the same gloves-normal thin fleece type things and the vet had a towel in one hand and a large thick glove on her other. I was actually unhappy about the big glove as it looked like a falconary glove, meaning it was rough and inflexible=a bit scarey looking, but also suspect it had the scent of several other animals on it. But as the vet had seen my injuries when I brought him in, I couldn't blame her for wanting to protect herself.
It has occurred to me to try without and there have been occasions when I've had one on and one off lol, when he's been out and when putting food in his cage. I will openly admit that the thought does worry me, due to the extent of the injuries and the fact that i can't work for a couple of weeks after it happens. BUT, I also see that his behaviour can change from day to day, no matter what I'm doing, wearing. I've been really aware of keeping sounds, sights, smell etc as consistant as possible but some days you can just see he's on a knife's edge.
If my gloves are the problem, I will have to accept it and try without. If he bites me then, then I may struggle to keep them off.
Another thing I had thought of as well was that wearing the gloves gave me the ability to sit on the floor and let him climb on me and stay relaxed and even enjoy it. I've no doubt he is strongly affected if I start to get scared and it will also affect the way I move and behave, if I've got adrenalin running through me.
The thing that is baffling me is that he's been doing well with things as they were, including the gloves, for nearly 8 weeks.
As always, I'm willing to accept blame and look at changing my behaviour, if that's what's causing his problems, but I have also wondered if there's any illness that could be causing it. I can't see anything obvious physically and he was examined after his abcess was drained. Could he have a mental health issue? Could he be depressed? He definately looks peturbed a lot. As he hasnt lost a sibling or anything, the only cause for him to be depressed that I could think of is him being on his own. I mean we generally accept that lone rats can be neurotic and I think that is an excellent word to describe this funny little boy. The only times he seems content are when something is occupying him, such as tearing up the carpet or unravelling and shredding a toilet roll! I purposefully occupy him as much as I can as it takes his mind off his misery. The obvious worry for me is the uncertainty of his response. I love the idea that a lady friend would transform his life but would I know if he's likely to attack her?
Sorry to keep bombarding you with long messages. As ever, your help is appreciated.

ANSWER: You are so right, that is another thing that was drilled in my head about lone rats....they tend to be neurotic, but this can also mean clingy and needy as well.

I have had lone rats before that were sweet hearts, but one little guy comes to mind....my boy, Kirby.  Someone gave him to me to be a companion with one of my sweet boys that was always bullied so he was alone. I was looking for another sweet rat to be his buddy. Turns out Kirby was an absolute doll and looked the part, but what a demon he was. He would come after me too and bite me, unless he knew I was there to take him out to let him roam around the big cardboard play area I had set up. He was so nasty he degloved peanut from a different cage. One lesson learned hard!  I had the cages too close together and Peanuts tail must have been dangling into Kirbys cage and Kirby got hold of it and degloved part of the tail. BLOOD EVERYWHERE! I knew Kirby was not to be trusted.   He live alone for the rest of his life which was cut short unfortunately due to a terrible virus. He died a hero though because we used his body to find out what the virus was that was causing 17 other rats to be sick all at once.  I missed the little guy, bites and all.  I also had four lab rats I rescued from a vet school.  yes they were mad for being test subjects, such as being used to draw blood, take temps (which is ridiculous since rats rarely run fevers since they lose so much body heat through the tail) and even had scars from having exploratory surgery done or they were used to have the vet students practice suturing.  So they had a right not to trust humans.  Ironically though as they got older and started to suffer from age related ailments, they wanted ME for comfort.   I have many stories to share but think I have blabbed enough for now, but I am thinking that perhaps our little man here is a bit on the neurotic side.

I would love to say YES YES!  Get the female but have this weird feeling in my stomach of him attacking her after you said that.
So yes, there is always a chance he could attack her....that goes for any rat really in a strange and new situation, but with him, he is not predictable.   I think if wanted company he would accept you as his best buddy and be done with it....but it seems to me he wants you when he wants you and when he doesnt, he lets you know it.

How old is he? I keep forgetting.....

Also, I dont think there is any blame to accept so dont blame yourself. It would be nice to blame the gloves but its obvious that isnt the problem.

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: He's nearly 8 months. Looks like I just have to accept he may always bite me and hope he mellows with age. And I had such a lovely dream about him and his new cage mate last night!Oh well. I've had 2 lone rats who were my best pals, so I suppose I should accept that I've been lucky in the past.


Answer
 

Good news...rats have some super major hormone changes around 6 to 8 months of age.  Although he was neutered, still I am sure there are lingering effects from soaring testosterone levels etc...  Just a hunch but maybe once he gets a bit older he chills out more. Please keep me posted. I cannot email you at random unless I go through allexperts so please email me at my private email at sandyscrittercity@yahoo.com and let me know how things are with him as time goes by.