Hi Lisa.  :-D
Sorry to hear about your husband and friend s wounded noses.  Believe me,
I know how horrible that feels since my nose ALSO got bitten once real
hard by my little boy Logan!
 
And I heard of other people on the list who had that happen to them too,
so there s definitely something between fuzzies and human noses!  (smell,
it looks funny, or maybe they think the person will bite him?!) I remember
it very well... Logan was laying down on top of me (by my chest) and then
he looked up, squeezed his little eyes half shut (which I call the evil
look whenever my ferrets fight or bite they make that face) and suddenly
jumped up and latched to my nose!  Boy was that PAINFULL!!!
 
I thought he d taken a piece out of it (therefore I even forgot to scruff
him and just ran to a mirror--heehee), but in the end was only 3 little
bleeding holes and a monster clown nose (yep, even though I put some ice
it got quite puffy!  but thank-God fuzzy bites heal quickly at least with
me!)
 
When we humans get bitten by fuzzies (or any other animals) I think we
gotta really try not to give in to our natural reflex to pull our
noses/whatever body-parts away, because that only causes MORE damage!
Pulling the FERRET away it is also a bad idea, same result!  I know, it s
confusing when we hear so much about scruffing our fuzzies when they do
something wrong, but the actual grabbing the fuzzy by the scruff has to
be done only AFTER the little carpet shark is NOT attached to the nose
anymore!
 
To un-attach the fuzzy from a nose you can either try to push his mouth
open from the back of the mouth (careful not to get a finger bitten those
back teeth don t puncture much but are SO powerful!  I had my finger
bitten once when I was dumb enough to try to help one of the cuties with
some soft piece of cartilage that was stuck to his back teeth, felt like a
door had closed in my finger!  wasn t the little fuzzy s fault that time
though).
 
You can also try covering his nose so he has to let go to breathe, and in
the last case put him under the sink and let the water go on him (also
works for most dogs fighting one another I ve had big dogs before and
it s also not a good idea to put yourself in the middle of a fight,
dangerous!).
 
Anyway, I hope your fuzzy doesn t bite any more noses but if he does,
after he s removed from the nose, I think the best is just to keep
re-educating him, scruffing and saying very sternly NO! , maybe dragging
him a little by the scruff (never hit or flick him!) and then you can put
him also in time out back in the cage (in my case I would put the biter
in the carrier for 5 to 10 minutes).
 
Logan (my nose biter) learned pretty quickly not to bite me, but took a
while to stop biting my male visitors (funny how he never bit kids or
visiting women), maybe he wants to be the only male-of-the-house (LOL)
or he didn t like man s smell or his past human (before he landed on the
shelter) was a man who knows what them fuzzies think!
 
I only know that Logan is now the cutest cuddliest fuzzy I know!  Sleeps
on me and never bites me even when we play real rough!  Now the other
fuzzies here Leeloo, our little albino Alpha ferret (she s tiniest than a
kit!), is known to bite other ferrets but never bit any human since I had
her (cutie), and the new baby Salma has bitten sometimes (mostly when she
s wigging out over meat!  she s afraid someone ll steal her food and has
latched to my fingers twice and wouldn't leg go 'cause she thought it was
the meat!) but she's also learning fast!
 
I wish you good luck with the little carpet shark and hope he remembers
that biting is not allowed!  (teen fuzzies do seem to forget a lot, but
with patience they ll remember!
 
Take care and big hug to you and them fuzzies, (and keep all human noses
away from the fuzzy s reach until he s behaving good again!)
 
Chris, Logan, Leeloo & the new addition to the family, little Salma!
[Posted in FML issue 3559]