Hi everyone!  I just took in a beautiful little all white w/dark eyes
female ferret under some rather odd circumstances and need to gain some
knowledge about them pretty quickly :o)

I had never even so much as seen a ferret (heard of them of course) until
last Saturday night.  My sister-in-law bought a ferret for her kids last
fall sometime and decided not to keep her because she wasn't getting
enough attention.  The SIL owns a bar and a girl came in the other night
talking about how she loved all animals and how she wanted a ferret.
SIL decided to give her the ferret along with all the supplies and 2
cages.  This girl had the ferret in the bar for most of the night.  She
was wonderful with the ferret at first but as she drank more she got very
obnoxious and abusive towards it (SIL wasn't there to see what happened).
It got to the point where the ferret (who SIL said was NOT a biter) was
actually attacking this girl, drawing blood on her.  She was screaming
about how she didn't want it anymore and was going to take it home and
feed it to her snake.  My DH heard all this, and while he did not want a
ferret, couldn't stand seeing it abused and it was getting to the point
where he was convinced that if she went home with this girl she wouldn't
survive the night.  He told me to talk to her and see if she would give
us the ferret.  She finally agreed to it.  We went out to transfer the
cages to my van while I left the ferret with my DH inside.  Things really
came to a head when this girl actually slammed her car into the front of
the vehicle next me, doing quite a bit of damage.  Her boyfriend was
screaming abuse at her.  I tried to stay calm, told them to go ahead and
pull their car forward so we could transfer the supplies and cages.  They
did that and the boyfriend just starts throwing stuff out, denting one of
the cages, and we found out later that some of the supplies were missing,
apparently left in their vehicle.  I told them we needed to go inside to
figure out who the vehicle they had hit belonged to, and at that point
they jumped into their car, the boyfriend still screaming, tore out of
the parking lot and disappeared.  My DH and I found out who the damaged
vehicle belonged to, and I gave them all the relevant information (I got
their plate number as they drove away).

Maybe this is all too much information, but I thought the background was
important because although it was only for a short time, the ferret (we
named her Snow) went through a really traumatic night.  Is this going to
affect her personality or turn her into a biter?  We also have other
pets, 3 dogs (a 6 month old GSD pup, a black lab, and a Saint Bernard)
and 2 cats, one who is extremely geriatric and doesn't care much what new
critters we bring home *LOL* I'm pretty nervous about letting Snow out
around the other animals, the dogs especially.  I don't want to see her
get hurt, although they are starting to calm down a bit when they see
her moving in the cage.

Also, the house isn't ferret proof right now, although I do have one
room that I could get that way pretty quickly.  I have 2 kids as well,
and need to know the correct way to handle Snow so I can teach them to
handle her appropriately.  I did do some research online but really am
a complete beginner on this and any ferret-related information at all
would really be appreciated.

Thanks so much!!

Niki
Snow the Ferret
Mittens and Merlin the Cats
[Posted in FML issue 5265]