As a treat for myself and my three other girls for Christmas I got myself a
fourth and final ferret (least till I get a house) Unfortunately, while this
fourth one, Trill, was beautiful and friendly and wonderful and a ball of
fluff in the pet store, I am having some fascinating problems trying to
train her at all where I didnt have the problem with the others.
 
Firstly, when I first got her, all four reverted to their "what?  that
corner is supposed to be a bathroom?" phase.  I had the three neatly trained
and my vet said they were the best behaved she had ever seen ferrets.
Anyways.  We got over the poop-anywhere-I-want-to problem after shrinking
their cage space a bit for a couple days and then gradually letting them
into the rest of it again and then out of the cage and kept expanding the
area.  They do pretty good now... they're back up to their 90% hit rate
which is about the best I expect.
 
The new one however, has not acclimated well at all to the new home.  She is
still terribly skittish around me even after spending time with her dousing
her with affection and trying to play ferret games.  I should point out I
have never seen a ferret quite like her.  I have seen fat ferrets n skinny
ferrets, but she is mostly just... well really thick fur and is just huge.
about twice the size of my other little girls, which has earned her the
nickname "bear".  So.  I try to play ferret games, she like my other little
one Rune (18 months old) like my leather belt and constantly love to play
with the jingly shiny silver part.  However, Trill/Bear will always play for
a few moments and then stop and go off to do something else.  Or she will
come over and nip at me and bounce around like she wants to play and then
the minute I go after her she runs off and seems terribly disinterested when
I try to play "tickle n chase" which Rune and the others find terribly fun.
I'll tickle their bellies while they bat at me with their four paws and they
nipnipnip their little hearts out, knowing not to nip me too hard, and then
I'll let them go and they bound away and I'll run off and they follow and
the game starts all over again.  It's lots of fun for us all.
 
Okay, sorry for the diatribe.  Anyways.  Trill/Bear also doesnt seem to get
along with the other ferrets.  She doesnt sleep with them when they are out
of the cage.  They all curl up in a corner of the bathroom with a towel they
find particularly appealing, while Trill will go beind the bathroom door and
curl up on the tile all by herself, all the time.  I try to put her with the
others after she falls asleep but she quickly finds her way back to the far
corner.  The cage sleep patterns are much the same, though they do all
occassionally do the "ferret clump" thing when they sleep.
 
Lastly, she doesn't have much of an eating habit.  She like's Kittymalt and
she likes Linatone, but I cant seem to get her to like any variety of treats
at all.  All the other ferrets come running whenever I crinkle one of the
thin plastic baggies that treats come in, or shake a can of Pounce.  Lately
I've been announcing "treets!" and they come to that now as well.
 
So in short, I need some training tips from all you people out there.  Any
advice on how to better acclimate this ferret o' mine would be much
appreciated.  She's ferreted her way into my heart like so many of these
little critters do, ... well.  big critter in her case.  And it just breaks
my heart to not see them getting along very well, and while I understand
that all ferrets will have different personalities, I would hope she would
not remain quite this aloof with some sort of better acclimation process
than it seems I have been able to offer.  Please help... would be greatly
appreciated.  email or post responses here.
 
Thanks in advance. :)
[Posted in FML issue 1890]