I think this evolved because of my vehement objection to his
investigation of my stereo speakers.  I'd warn him (Hey! No!),
he would stop, look at me, then lie on his side and start to
use the speaker as a scratching post.  At this point I would pick
him up and confine him to the cage for a few minutes.  By
far this is the most effective punishment for Spud.
 
Well, he hates to be in the cage so when I approached after
yelling at him, he would take off and hide under the chest of
drawers in the bedroom.  He knows I can't get him out of there
so he has successfully avoided the cage.  One of the ways I
could get him out was to partially shut the door and leave.  He
hates to be alone so he would open the door and go look for me.
If I stayed too close to the door, he could shoot right back
under the cest of drawers.  This eventually mutated into "hide-
and-seek".  When he wants to play, Spud does the ferret dance
in front of my feet (I yell at him for potentially getting stepped
on) and he chuckles and shoots under his hiding place.
 
The interesting thing about Spud's hide-and-seek is that he
will ignore you if you are not playing.  I had the neighbors' kids
over and Spud enticed them to play.  I was watching tv at the time.
He completely ignored me and sought out to find one of the kids.
Strange but true.  It was then that I noticed that he uses his
ears and nose to find them.  Hardly ever saw them (i.e. standing
in the middle of the room silently was a good place to hide).
Enough babble. eh?
 
M.
 
[Posted in FML issue 0630]