When Luz first owned me, he was quite the foot chomper. I still have the scars on the tops of my poor lil feet to show off! He was a pet store boy whom I had met before arriving in the big FFZ, and after about 6 months of working with him, he's as lovey-dovey as can be. He wasn't handled very much, and very much enjoyed attaching himself to exposed flesh (feet, noses, chins). And the boy had to be *pried* off. Big time owies for Mommy. =) I basically tried *everything*. The two I had lived with before Luz were never biters, so this was a completely new experience to me. Bitter apple sprayed on my foot didn't deter him. Squirting him with water while he was attached to my foot didn't help -- he would just lick the water off, and CHOMP!! So, I gave up on all of the above, and decided to work with him on his, umm, behavioral problems. The boy would chomp... I would scruff him, tell him how disappointed I was, and give him a time-out in a carrier. Alternatively, I would hold him (he'd rather be playing) instead of giving him a time-out so he could reflect on the bad thing he did. =) It took quite a bit of time, patience, and bandaids :-) but he's changed from the unsocialized little beast to a mostly gentle 4.25 pound (just weighed him) baby. I don't think he was ever being vicious or mean -- he just didn't know any better. These days, he's my only lap fert, and loves to lick the bottom of my feet. A total Momma's boy. Go figure. =) To the person from the GA fert org who suggested the fly swatter/act of god method for distracting Simmi (bite and run spaz-fert)... Well, I didn't have a fly swatter, so I swatted in her general direction with a magazine. Needless to say, she's the happy new owner of an old news magazine. She went into her spaz-mode war dance and stole the magazine. Silly fert. I don't want to encourage her newfound nippiness... but it's hard to catch something that seems to move at the speed of light! She's about to turn a year old, and *more* hyper than ever. Maybe she's found some mysterious energy source under the dresser? Could the FLO be responsible??? Hmm... - Alyssa [Posted in FML issue 1744]