Hello Fellow ferret friends!
        Well, I'm happy to report that I'm finally legitimate :)  I can
finally say that I really do have a pair of REAL carpet sharks running
around, and that I'm really cleaning up real ferret poop from the real
corners I never even knew existed! (and loving it *grin*) Anyway, just
last thursday, with the help of some wonderful people at the Ferret
Association of Connecticut, I was finally able to bring home two ferrets,
Sterling (male) and Caramel (female), both altered and descented, about
a year and a half old.  This is the first time I've ever owned ferrets, so
I'm particularly excited to have them running around the house.
Sterling is just wonderful:  A complete doll!  He's very friendly, and has
no trouble with people whatsoever.  But Caramel is slightly different.  I
love her too, but she has a very strange behavior.  To preface: She's
quite curious, and loves to run around getting into this and that, but she
usually doesn't seem to like too much contact with me (not nearly as
much as Sterling likes, who'll take whatever he can get :)   Which is not
to mean that she's unfriendly!  Just less into human contact than
Sterling. However, she does like to lick, then bite.   If I'm lying on my
bed, for instance, and she pops up for a look around, she'll come up to
my arm, or leg, or foot, and start licking it, and licking and licking and
licking, like she'd never stop for anything in the world (she closes her
eyes and has that lost-in-contentment look of a suckling puppy).  But
the moment she gets to a piece of skin she can get her whole mouth
around, SNAP! She chomps down.  In fact, she bites so hard she draws
blood almost every time, (perhaps I'm just thin-skinned :-, ) and usually
hangs on through three or four sharp "NO!"'s and nose-flicks   She'll
often do the same thing when she's being held, but with much less licking
before she finds a good spot to chomp.  It never seems like a malicious
bite, not like it was meant in a mean way, but it definitely hurts!  I'm
sure (ok.. not so sure... hoping?) I'll be able to break the behavior with a
nose-flick every time it happens, so I'm not really concerned with how
to treat it -- what I'm really interested in knowing is what it _means_.
What kind of behavior is it?  _Is_ she being mean?  Or is it some kind
of friendly bite? Or is it neither, just a sort of "maybe I can get away
with this" kind of behavior?  I'd really like to know.  I'm sure someone
who's spent years in the company of ferrets has some insight into this
behavior :)     Thanks for your help!
 
Seth,  Caramel(*chomp!*) and Sterling
 
[Posted in FML issue 0519]