Hi!  We're Josef and Claire in Austin, Texas.  Claire speaking.
 
Well, she's about seven weeks old now. A butterscotch, Siamese, neutered,
descented female we purchased from a Mall petstore (PetLand) that has a
great reputation for their quality pets of all kinds.  We call her Peaches,
although we were seriously considering "Fang" because of her nippiness.
She's social, friendly, whines when we leave, follows us around the house,
falls asleep in our arms.... but let me get back to that nippiness part.
When she was tiny, her nips were gentle, social, playful, and never hurt.
Now she's getting older, more bold and aggressive, and her nips, while
still just playful, are beginning to hurt. She grabs a pinch of skin and
shakes her head rapidly back and forth as if to rend the meat from our
bones.  And any part of us is fair game.  Elbows, ankles, rear ends, hands,
noses. Still doesn't hurt quite. But we know it will eventually. She reacts
well if we hiss at her, usually backing up with startled look, but after
two or three times that doesn't work anymore. Tiny whaps at the nose to
discourage her only make her twice as excited, and she waggles and beeps
and wants more.  Scruffing her works for several seconds.  She relaxes and
gapes quietly until released, then beeps happily and attacks our feet for
more play. So, we're kind of at loss.  We've been trying to find treats
(read: bribes) that she'll eat, hoping to use them as motivation for good
behavior. But she turns her nose up on absolutely all human food we've
thought of, including chocolate, jelly, hot dogs, tuna fish, and milk.
She's even finicky with her kitten chow, but at least she eats it.  Well,
in the end we're looking for some training advice.  Anyone have any magical
tricks for keeping a beeping, playful, good-natured little ferret from
snacking on her unconsenting playmates? It doesn't help that she's so cute
all I want to do is snuggle her even as I bleed to death. Please email any
responses to [log in to unmask], or, I suppose to the list.  Not sure how that's
done. Thanks!
 
--Claire
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[Posted in FML issue 0990]