Strange behaviour towards other rats

[Shelley]

I've been trying my girl Molly with all of my rats individually, and she just gives off the most confusing signals. I'm not sure what she is doing, but I've never seen her behaviour before.

When Molly is introduced to a new rat, she follows them around with her head low. She shovels her head underneath the rats, and keeps trying to go under them like that. If they keep moving away from her, she will grab them by the leg or butt with her teeth. The weird thing is that she always keeps her head low, and continually pushes it underneath the other rat. They don't know what to make of it, and I don't either.

I'll try get a video of some sort. It just seems so weird to me, and at first I ignored it, but I know that her behaviour is confusing my girls. I really want to introduce my oldest girl with Molly so they can be in a quiet large cage together, since both are calm compared to my Wild girls family. This behaviour upset Lily and caused a little fight. Although Molly does not fight back, ever. But once she gets up from being pinned, she continues to do the same thing.

I don't get it. :?:

 

[jorats]

Molly is taking a dominant stance. And that's probably off putting to all the other rats. She's a bully.

 

[Shelley]

I guess I've just never seen a rat use this kind of stance before. My other rats usually puff up big and push the others around. With all my previous rats, a dominant stance has been very easy to spot. I just found it strange that she was trying to go under them. Strange girl :roll: I suppose that is why George absolutely hates her. George is a very dominant female, and if the stance Molly is taking is also dominant.. no wonder they can't stand each other. *sigh*

 

[jorats]

I see this a lot in my rats. It's almost like a sneaky dominance. My Oliver did this all the time and I had two rats that were simply petrified of him while others just didn't care. What Molly is looking for when she's doing this is to be groomed and this would be like she is being honoured. It's exactly like that in bunnyland too.

 

[Shelley]

Above all, it's just frustrating. I've tried Molly with all 9 of my girls, and not one will get along with her. I really want her to have a cagemate, so I need to think about what to do now

 

[AlexandraBoo]

I just recently introduced my two males, and willow did this with boo, he would have his head low, and put it under them, he would make himself lower than boo when he was around boo. I figured it was him surrendering. I hope the intro goes good