>They are not completely litterbox trainable.
 
If you have a small number of fuzzies, and you train them systematically and
slowly, you can get close.  I seem to have been reasonably successful at
litter training mine (based on what other people report).  Like Bob, I
report my own experience.
 
I still maintain the key is to start small and expand only as they show
responsibility.  My technique is: keep them in the bathroom for a few weeks
when they are young (of course taking them out to play after they have done
it).  If they are doing it right, do not shorten this period.  If they don't
do it right, confine them further and make them choose between their bed,
litter, and food (though mine always did it right in one room).  After a few
weeks in the bathroom, open the door and give them a hallway or half a
hallway extra.  If they don't do it right here, try the rumpled blanket or
food dish trick, but if that doesn't work, you must confine them to a
smaller area again.  I suggest purchasing a $250 carpet cleaning machine and
some urine-breaking enzyme to aid in nullifying accidents.  When they have
the bathroom and hallway right (for week or two), add a little more area.
Cut down the front of your litter box so they can get in easily.  Put a
towel under the box with some material sticking out to catch drips (and male
ferret squirts over the front edge).  If they are going in an area that you
can't reach like behind the dresser, move the dresser or keep them from
going behind it.  I still have a sheet under the bed to remind them that
this area is a bed, not a latrine, but I have gone for 4-5 years with a
mistake only once every two months or so (1 wrong out of 720 right is pretty
good, I think; Remember, cats barf on the rug).  I have a box in the
bathroom and one in the kitchen.  I have to keep the boxes pretty clean or
they don't back in far enough.  The ferrets have about 3 rooms.
 
I don't agree with the you-should-definitely-cage-ferrets rule, though I
realize that I run the risk of a house break-in or other emergency allowing
the ferrets to escape or finding them difficult to locate.  I think the
ferrets like easy access to their litter boxes, and if they had to climb
into a cage and then into the litter box I might not have as much success
litter training.  Since mine are out always, I sit down on the couch and
they come up and cuddle.  I just worry that some of the cage crowd who are
not on this list will not be serious about ferret time and will get busy and
leave them in the cage to languish.  I tell people that if they are new to
ferrets, giving the ferrets a room of their own when they are away would be
a good compromise.
 
>painfully aware of the "downside" of ferrets -- the infant maulings...
 
This kind of talk tends to ignore the perspective of dog and cat incidents.
Again, let's see our enemies try to bathe their cat and blast it with the
faucet, clip its claws, clean its ears, or scale its teeth.  Then, if they
are able to speak, we'll argue it.
 
Todd Cromwell III (Dors and Seldon)
P.S. Don't forget to write to the California assembly members.
[Posted in FML issue 1917]