If you are reading this, you enjoy life with gerbils. Do they enjoy you? Do gerbils recognize their owners?
I often wonder if we’re just getting in the way of their own bonding time with each other. Are we more than just cleaners and food providers?
Let’s see how close we can get to these rodent companions by seeing if they recognize us.
Do Gerbils Recognize Their Owners?
The jury’s still out on the definite conclusion. There haven’t been studies that test a gerbil’s ability to recognize their owner by face or voice. However, anecdotal evidence suggests that gerbils bond, recognize, and love their owners.
If you’re wondering whether the cute little fuzz you bought sees you as a friend and remembers you, you’re not alone. Many owners have the same question! Here’s what we were able to discover about gerbils’ ability to recognize people.
The answer to this all depends on how much science you want to drag into the question. If you want to see specific studies devoted to the topic, you’re out of luck. There hasn’t been a solid experiment to see whether or not gerbils recognize their owners.
On the other hand, if you’re okay with anecdotal evidence from people who owned them, there’s plenty of reason to believe that your gerbil recognizes you.
Why People Believe That Gerbils Recognize Owners
If you’ve ever spoken to a gerbil owner before, you already know that you need to be able to bond with them in order to socialize them. Gerbils that aren’t slowly introduced to their owners and other humans may get skittish, panicky, or try to escape.
Like many other small animals, gerbils have to be taught to trust their owners in order to be relaxed around them. Socializing them by picking them up gently, letting them wander around with supervision, and also just getting them used to hearing you reduces the amount of aggression or panic they display.
Do Gerbils Recognize Faces?
We don’t know for sure, but there are plenty of owners who swear that gerbils recognize their face. The general consensus that animal behaviorists believe is that they don’t recognize human faces, but rather, recognize owners by smell.
Some people believe that gerbils can recognize their owners by face, but the problem is that human appearances can easily change with a haircut, makeup, or even a trip to the tanning salon. Gerbils can’t rely on sight alone.
Do Gerbils Recognize Different Human Smells?
Gerbils, like most other rodents, have extremely sensitive senses of smell. Among gerbil society, these little rodents recognize one another by sniffing each other. Considering that they are capable of recognizing different gerbils by scent alone, it’s not surprising that they can do the same with humans.
If you ever noticed your gerbil pressing his nose and mouth against you, it’s because he’s smelling you. This is a sign that your gerbil is bonding with you and getting a good whiff of your personal scent. Scent is a fairly reliable factor for gerbils.
Maintaining their health allows them to sharpen their keen senses. See how much you should invest into that.
Can Gerbils Recognize Humans By Sound?
Generally speaking, small rodents are blessed with stronger senses of hearing—and that includes gerbils. Owners believe that gerbils can recognize their owners’ voices as well as the voices of owners’ friends.
Gerbils aren’t stupid; they can even be trained to recognize their own names with a little work. That being said, their ability to judge sound isn’t always reliable. Though they can tell the difference between voices, it’s safe to say that gerbils primarily use scent to determine who’s who.
Will they recognize their name? See my article here to find out how you can help make this a possibility.
Do Gerbils Enjoy Strangers?
While gerbils can be loving and happy to see their owners, strangers are a different case altogether. The majority of gerbils will not be friendly towards strangers. Rather, they’ll view strangers with suspicion and fear.
It makes sense, especially when you take a look into their evolutionary traits. Here’s why they tend to be wary of strangers:
- Gerbils can’t tell what human intentions will be. If you were a pet to a giant 50 times your size, wouldn’t you be cautious about other giants? Gerbils don’t necessarily know what peoples’ intentions are. To protect themselves from harm, they will logically try to flee from strangers.
- Gerbils are wired to see larger animals as predators. Their top predators are cats and dogs. It makes sense that anything larger would terrify them.
- Many gerbils aren’t socialized to like strangers. Part of it is also a matter of training. Some gerbils can be perfectly friendly towards new people as long as they have been trained with many different people around them. Others will always be a little anxious with new people.
- Gerbils are also naturally anxious. Some animals are more skittish than others. Gerbils are known for being prone to anxiety, sometimes to the point of peeing themselves. Much like with other animals, bringing in unknown elements can add to a gerbil’s overall level of anxiety. New people fit under that bill.
It’s important to recognize that it can take several months before you are able to bond with your gerbils. Handling is an important topic I cover as well.
Even then, most pet owners would call gerbils a “watch instead of pet” type of companion.
Sure, they will recognize you, but chances are that they’ll never be too keen on getting pet or being brought around strangers.
How To Make Your Gerbil More Open To Bonding With You
If you want to make your gerbil capable of recognizing you and loving you, you’re going to need to put in effort, too. Gerbils are more likely to bond and recognize people if their owners use the following tips:
- Keep their cage clean and the room they’re in scent-free. Gerbils don’t do well with strong scents or unclean conditions. It stresses them out and makes them averse to bonding with others. By making their environment more inviting, you give them more reason to want to bond with you.
- Talk to them. Gerbils need to hear your voice in order to recognize you. The only way to make sure that your gerbil can remember what you sound like is to give them the opportunity to hear your voice on a regular basis.
- Wash your hands before you handle your gerbil. Your gerbil won’t be able to stand you if your hands smell like garlic or lemon. Those scents are too strong and may even throw off their ability to recognize your body odor if you’re unlucky!
- Regularly do bonding exercises with your gerbil. Scooping your gerbil up with your hands, letting them wander around with supervision, and giving them treats can help them learn to see you as a friend.
Can A Gerbil Recognize You If They’re Not Bonded To You?
It’s hard to say. Gerbils seem to be more comfortable around people who they see on a regular basis, even if they themselves are not directly bonded to them. However, no one really knows how much effort it takes to make a gerbil capable of recognizing your voice, face, or scent.
Do Gerbils Love Their Owners?
Not love. They cannot think or feel the same way we do about love since they do not have the same brain structure.
The limbic system and brain stem process love in the same area of the brain. Gerbils could be able to experience affection in a similar way to how people do.
However, we still don’t entirely comprehend what gives our emotions their immense force, making it hard to comprehend the feelings of other creatures.
That is not to imply that gerbils can’t show their owners affection. They can most certainly develop a special relationship with them that they don’t have with anybody else. It’s uncertain, though, if they genuinely adore their owners in the same manner.
Do Gerbils Bond With Their Owners?
Yes. When it comes to individuals and their gerbils, our experience has shown that food, specifically pumpkin seeds or raisins, is the most common factor that facilitates the formation of a bond.
Depending on the gerbil’s prior life, it may take some time before they are able to trust us. It takes time to develop a close relationship with a gerbil.
Building up your gerbil’s confidence in you is a laborious and time-consuming task. The essential actions for forming a close relationship with your gerbils are outlined in this article above.
You should never snuggle a gerbil for the first time you meet it. If you observe that he or she is shaking or otherwise acting uneasy, you should put him or her back in their cage immediately.
Do Gerbils Like Humans?
Gerbils are not going to like every human they see. Will they like you? It depends on your commitment to:
- time
- effort
- patience
- practice
- consistency
Will you keep up the interaction daily and use treats to train your gerbil? A stranger is going to be treated with some apprehension at first. It takes time for most gerbils to warm up to humans.
We are giants in their world and our existence can be more than just providing food or cleaning up after them.
Gerbils will:
- recognize their name
- your voice
- your smell
They will enjoy you as their primary caregiver, friend and companion because they are overall very social and trusting if you allow them to trust you.
Conclusion
People who are worried about having a pet that’s not able to recognize them need not worry about gerbil ownership. If you listen to pet owners and animal behaviorists, they’ll tell you that gerbils are intelligent creatures that are capable of recognizing their owners after spending time bonding with them.
Just because there aren’t any science experiments containing hard data on gerbil facial recognition doesn’t mean that they are incapable of recognizing their owners. Gerbils love and recognize the people around them every single day. Though they typically recognize owners through scent and voice, you never know. Maybe gerbils do look forward to seeing their owners’ faces too!
Sources:
https://www.hartz.com/knowing-your-small-pets-a-guide-to-gerbil-behavior/
https://www.gerbilwelfare.com/do-gerbils-get-attached-to-their-owners/
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