Dudley was originally adopted by a forum member at our local HS. He wasn’t on the website and later on I learned that he had been there for months and months. The policy for adoption at our now controversial and beleaguered HS is that you cannot handle any of the prospective small animals. You literally pick and point out your choice, and he was DUMBO and handsome, so she adopted him. Very soon after getting him home, he bit the boyfriend really badly and they became very scared of him.
Then a post went up on my local forum, for someone to take in this biter boy or he would be going back to the HS. Well…I know what happens to biters there…first their little cage is shoved up on a high shelf and then they are literally forgotten. I have seen this personally and decided, “not on my watch!”.
So Dudley arrived, in all his glory. He was hormonally aggressive but there was also an extra something in his rages.
He couldn’t be handled, and I honestly was a bit afraid of those massive jaws of his, so we worked out ways to get him out of his cage without me having to handle him. The best was putting his cage near the Computer desk and opening the door. He would run VERY happily in the livingroom, and to get him back, I would encourage him to go into a basket and carry it over to the cage :)
I did a lot of singsonging “Dudleey,…into the basket” over and over.
Once he was on my shoulder he was fine, I used that once instead of the basket, and managed to get pics of me not being bitten. His name was changed to Dudley-Do-Bite.
He was neutered (carefully) and even months later, still raging and untrustworthy.
Then almost 2 months later the breakthrough happened.
I cried. :’)
My tough guy became soo sweet…all it took was time, patience, understanding, and a lot of freedom. Sadly he wouldn’t accept other rats at all.
I found out through a woman I had known before, that SHE had found Dudley in her apartment lobby, in tupperware, with a sign, saying please take my Dudley home. She took him to the THS about 4-5 months before he was adopted out. :( She was over for some reason or other and told me a story about this rat she found named Dudley...I walked her to his cage, said "It's a very small world" and let her hold him. She was sooo happy :D
He was such a tough guy he hid an illness and I though he was being passive with his intro to a fear aggressive Tika yesterday...but I was wrong. Today he got very sick, and Loner boy went off by himself and passed. At least in his last few days he had friends and he learned to cuddle.
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