hi,
i had an abused ferret also....heres what you do:
when she bites scruff her immediately and look her in her face and tell her
in a monotone voice "no"...."no bite"... and then gently blow once in her
face....
 
keep repeating this the same way every time....but on the 4th time after
you do eevrything else put her in her cage by herself for a 5 min...time
out...do not pay any attention to her...
 
after 5 mins..bring her out again...and repeat the whole process...but on
the 4th time put her in time out for 10 mins.... just increase by 5 mins
each time....
 
you have a problem and you know that....first it was the employess who
started it...THEY SHOULD BE REPORTED!!!!  and then the way you tried to
handle it.... i am not critzing you at all...after all how are you suppose
to know if yuou havent been thru this before!!!!  just follow my advice and
she WIIL COME OUT OF IT EVENTUALY...
 
but understand this:
it will not be overnight...it will take time...lots of time.... we worked
with sydney for about 4 hrs a day for a month and a half.... she bite to
the bone and would not let go...she went haywire, she WAS A PSYCO CHICK!!!
hehehehe
 
but she did come out of it...
sydney was beat so much that she is now deaf.... so just in case your
ferret does have a hearing problem this will work.... Dr Harrington now
tells his patients to use this procedure now...cause it works...most
importantly its humane..no one is using gloves and hitting the ferret and
etc...
 
the bad thing is...yes your fingers and hands still are going to be sore
for awhile..
 
make sure you wash your hands before you handle her ALWAYS....some ferrets
will freak out because of a certain smell...we have 2 ferrets who will
attack our hands because of the smell of smoke...now we dont smoke and we
are not around smokers but sometimes it cannot be avoided...
 
when you talk to her try not to let yourself (your emotions) get the best
of you...i know its REALLY HARD WHEN SHES HANGING ON YOUR FINGER but we
found that when we would just try not to let our emotions race (just after
we got her off) that she responded better...
 
yelling and screaming at your ferret will not work in the long run...thats
like screaming at your kids all the time...it just doesnt make for a well
behaved child!!!
 
and you also might want to limit who deals with her and who doesnt... this
is very important as the disapline needs to be done the same way "EVERY
TIME"...consisitancy is the key here...do not let her get by with any of
it....
 
well thats my advice...it will work if you follow it...
 
now on a personal note to everyone else:
see this is why NOSE THUMPING in any way is very detrimental to your
ferrets and so is hitting and slapping.... would you do this to your
child???  i think not!!!  if you need to do this to an animal PLEASE dont
own or work with any animals for you are not a proper cadidate for one!!!
 
Trudi and the 13 terrorists!!!!
[Posted in FML issue 2646]