Just had to add my two cent's worth....I have a golden retriever, the most
gentle and obedient sweetie you could imagine, Gigi.  She was trained as a
seeing-eye dog, but flunked out and I was able to adopt her.  She is SO well
trained and loving and loyal.  Anyway, she gets along great with my cats,
they love each other, and she keeps out of the way of the ferrets.  They
even eat out of her food and water dish and it doesn't faze her at all.  It
seems they scare her.  She has never, never, hurt anybody or anything.
Well, one day last month, Chip, my 2 pound DEW, waddled up to Gigi's water
dish WHILE SHE WAS EATING and something happened.  I didn't exactly see what
it was.  I think the dog put her heavy paw down on Chip's head, not to hurt
him, but to push him away.  I heard a thump and a squeal.  All I saw was
Chip crouched down, eyes closed, shivering.  In a complete panic I scooped
him up - - his eyes were watering and he was shaking and looking VERY weird.
I rushed to the vet, thinking the dog had chomped him or something, but by
the time we got to the vet, Chip was fine.  The vet examined him and
suspected that he had a tiny scratch inside one lower eyelid, bearing out my
theory that the dog had scratched the ferret with her paw.  To make a long
story short, a very gentle, reliable dog injured the ferret by accident.  So
my suggestion would be, no matter how wonderful your dog is, you need to
SUPERVISE when dogs are playing with the ferrets!
 
Kat
[Posted in FML issue 1834]