A, Stop hitting!  It is NEVER a good idea and often gets exactly the
opposite results from what you want, but it is a VERY common mistake because
it is the way primates (including us) often cope with such things.  What you
need here is FERRET psychology, NOT primate psychology!  Your little one is
getting wound up and just so happy and busy with play that it forgets it's
own strength, but then you or your mom hit it, and that says, "Sure, we play
rough, too!" which only entrenches and validates the behavior!  What you
need to do to is to scruff the ferret and give it a short time out in the
cage each time it gets too rough, then let it out.  Eventually, it will
realize that it can play as long as it is not too rough and the problem will
be licked.  It may also be badly bored.  We cage our ferrets when they can't
be supervised or we put them in reasonably ferret-safe enough "romp rooms",
but our cages are BIG, they and the romp rooms contain toys (catnip mousies,
bells, tubes, etc.), and we have multiple ferrets so they always have a
friend to wrestle with.
 
Judith, you made me laugh!  I also loved Kim's Ferret Hell, and Vesna's Dook
University!  Had a number of other giggles, too, and can never get enough of
those!  Know what my all-time favorite ferret funny was?  Some genius put on
a ferret curse which included "May a ferret mistake you for a corner..."
 
Congratulations, Troy Lynn!!!!!!!
 
Re: perfume or lotions and biting: I can think of two mechanism for it.
Stink is important to status for a ferret so to have an interloper with more
stink than Mom and Dad in the house could be disconcerting for some.  Also,
many lotions are high in fats so the annointed part may seem like a snack to
an unschooled ferret.
 
M, Did you give the ferret-naive vet the related medical FAQs so he could be
familiar with the potential problem before-hand and better equiped to judge
the situation?  If there is serious grinding that or seeing a more
knowledgeable vet would make sense.  Remember that they can grind from other
GI discomfort causes, too, so don't forget a poop check for parasites, and
other logical variations.
 
Unlike Bob we cage (and he and I STILL manage to be friends and to be
completely civil --imagine that -- must be because we both have Spike Jones
tapes) and Steve and I swear by cages and safe romp rooms for accident and
blockage prevention.  When the cage is a den rather than a prison the
ferrets grow to love it and very typically will return to it when tired on
their own (which is why we have a multi-level maze box in front of it so
they can get in and out more comfortably).
 
I apologize for not keeping up with sending sympathy notes.  There just
hasn't been time, and we went through enough exhaustion to get wacky so I
would not trust myself with such a delicate task right now.  I did not mean
to neglect any friends recently; just had to keep up with Meltdown, the
healthy five, and the rest of life, plus I lost some addresses as seems to
be common for me when I don't sleep.  We do sympathize and we did cry over
the annoucements.
 
We feel sorry for those who have not been able to attend shows because of
the fear of ECEattacking their elderly or sick ones, and we relate because
that has been our reality for a while.  How DO shows handle this?  Do those
bringing ferrets have to present vet's certifcates that the ferrets have
been healthy within a reasonable time and that they have also been tested
for parasites?  (The MAJOR reason we went with a Marshalls kit when we added
Jumpstart was because we know a place which gets them from a distributor who
handles ONLY Marshall's kits, and Marshalls is known to be ECE free and
extremely careful on that score.  Our having had truly ROBUST, healthy,
wonderful kits from them did not hurt, either.  We ARE curious about the
kits of several breeders but since we can't be sure that they are as ECE
careful we just felt this was best for Meltdown.)
 
Better get back to the laughter masters,
Sukie
[Posted in FML issue 1851]