Hi all,
 
I've been lurking through the FML for about a month and a half now, and
figured it's finally time to come out of the closet.  I am Jennifer, a 24
year old human owned by Dare, a 14 week old male butterscotch fuzzball I
absolutely adore.  I've had relatively few problems since I got him 5 weeks
ago, all of them minor....Until now..  {hahaha}....
 
What's happenening the past few days is that Dare will wake up between three
and four o'clock in the morning, and start making a racket wanting to get
out of his cage...{I don't want to start the caging debate again...I have to
cage him at night since I still live with my family, who continually come in
and out of the room, and 2 dogs; 1 of which still thinks I bought the ferret
to serve to him as dessert}.  I've tried both bitter apple and nose
thwapping, to no avail.  The first night it went on for about 45 minutes,
despite spraying the cage door numerous times, and a few rubs of the nose in
bitter apple.  Reluctantly, i took him out for half an hour, just to shut
him up, and I finally got to sleep at 5 in the morning <UGH!!> What I've
been doing the last couple of nights is trying again with the spray for
about five minutes, and when that doesn't work, I leave the room until the
noise stops {usually about 20-30 minutes}.
 
I'm guessing it's just natural for ferrets to do this.  It's not like I
leave him in the cage all day--he's out from the time I wake up till the
time I'd *like* to go to sleep, so he should be plenty tired when I finally
put him in for the night.  I love my ferret, and would never give him up or
do anything to hurt him...but...I NEED MY SLEEP!!  It's getting to the point
where I have a hard time concentrating on anything {Actually, a hard time
just functioning-- period!!  <laugh>}... Any advice would be greatly
appreciated!!
 
Thanks to all you fertlovers,
Jennifer and Dare
[Posted in FML issue 1634]