I've been subscribed for a while but I've not posted since I didn't think
I could keep up with the volume.  I still don't think I can but I'll try a
little harder.
 
My problem comes in our first ferret introduction.  We adopted Sarah and
Freddie from a friend of our who was moving and was distressed that he
couldn't take his ferrets with him.  As we were about to buy a house, we
decided that a room for the ferrets was one of the requirements.
 
So, we have a room on the main floor that has System Three boat epoxy on
the floor and up the walls some.  We've got a wide variety of toys, tubes,
structures, jeans, etc.  around the room.  We've also got the one cage that
Freddie and Sarah brought with them.  If they nip when it isn't play time,
they are consigned to the cage for about 15 minutes while they see the
other ferret continued to be played with.
 
Well, we lost Freddie this past June [long post about Freddie elided...]
and we figured that we needed to get a new ferret so that Sarah would have
someone to play with.
 
Well, between hosting a national event for our Church and other summer
craziness, we didn't get another ferret until now.  We're having some
problems that just may be common to introducing ferrets.
 
Sarah is a silver mitt of about 4 years.  She's only been with Freddie for
as long as we know.  We took her to the WFA Shelter in Bellevue to find her
a friend.  Tori is a chocolate siamese of about 18 months.  First we put
them in the playpen with lots of toys.  Tori quickly went into one of the
structures while Sarah sniffed around a lot.  Then we put them in an
outdoor plastic circle.  They sniffed all around and seemed fine with each
other.  This was about 15 minutes each.  Things seemed fine.
 
Now, we go home.  We place them both in the room, we've washed all the
towels and such laying around to make it somewhat more neutral place.  Tori
is wondering around some while Sarah is playing with some things.  Sarah
jumps Tori and is biting her below the neck.  This is somewhat expected
from a dominance point of view but it keeps going on.  I separate them and
put them in different parts of the room.  Things seem okay.  They go to
sleep.  After a bit I hear screaming from the other room.  Sarah had gone
in where Tori was asleep and grabbed her hard and wouldn't let go.  Now
when we separate them, Sarah goes as directly as possible to where Tori is
and bites hard.  We tried giving them a bath but this didn't seem to help.
 
We don't have two cages to put together.  We only have the one cage and the
rest of the room.  Right now what we're doing is putting Tori in the cage
while Sarah is in the rest of the room and taking them out frequently.
Still, if we put them together Sarah goes right for Tori.
 
Is there anything to do here except for wait and hope they get used to each
other?  Or rather that Sarah accepts Tori?
 
Thanks,
 Darren
 
P.S. It's actually Freddie Mercury ferret, Sarah McLachlan ferret, and
Tori Amos ferret but that's kind of long...
--
<[log in to unmask]><http://www.daft.com/~torin/> <[log in to unmask]><[log in to unmask]>
Darren Stalder/2608 Second Ave, @282/Seattle, WA 98121-1212/USA/+1-206-ELF-LIPZ
@                    Make a little hot-tub in your soul.                      @
[Posted in FML issue 3179]