# Mouse think I smell



## soremi (Aug 18, 2017)

Hi I got two females, wild mouse and a fancy mouse. Long story short during the introduction process fancy mouse was perfectly happy with my smell but after setting her with other mouse my hands are hmm repulsive to her. I know animal behaviour change after setting hierarchy but I didn't see anything like this before. When the mouse is outside the cage she is hanging near me, and she rather won't go on other places than my shoulders, laps, hands etc. ( I assumed I am her safe space or bodyguard) When she is outside my hands are not a problem. But when I put hands in the cage and she goes near my fingers she flinch, close her eyes and turn her head or go away. Still she can go on my wrists in cage. When I give a treat to my wild mouse she is totally cool with my fingers, eat happily natural yoghurt from them or eat seeds from my hand. And fancy mouse go near us and try to break her disgust? and try to figure out with her eyes closed if the smell is worth the taste I guess. Sometimes when I got veggies pieces she kind of push wild mouse to take a piece for her and wild mouse take piece, give her and go back to my hand ( they don't have food conflict since they like other tastes). Only moments when fancy mouse eat from my hand is when I literally put whole hand to yoghurt and then she licks it with her eyes closed and weird face expressions. I decided to let it go for some time but yesterday a complete stranger to my mice want to meet them and put his hand to feed them and fancy mouse totally take and eat food from a person she saw first time in her life. It pissed me off a little. I don't use hand cream/nail polish when I interact with mouse, my hands don't sweat, I can't say I got some specific body odour, other animals don't mind my smell and I wonder what happen to this mouse. Once I even put my hand totally smelling like tomatoes after cooking (she love tomatoes) and she still flinch, closed her eyes and turn around. I can live with it, left her treats in cage (although sometimes I see she behaves like it still smells like me - close eyes, flinch but then finally take it...). I didn't see this kind behaviour on forum (usually the smell is human problem, trying to deal with bedding). I wonder if anyone has this problem before?


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## GitaBooks (Aug 31, 2015)

It doesn't sound like it is the smell that is bothering the mouse, but rather a reaction to the hierarchy it has established with you. Perhaps your mouse is just being submissive? I'm not a mouse behavior expert, but most animals don't respond to smells with disgust unless it is very strong, like a skunk.


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