Stephanie Rusk: I used to take my first ferret Snoop camping all of the
time.  I brought her carrier (It's quite large), leash, food/water dishes,
blankies, etc.  Just make sure that you are in a well shaded area, so that
it doesn't get to hot.  If you want to take a swim, take the babies with
you.  Snoop would do her slow paddle next to me in the water.  I would try
it overnight at a local campground first, not all ferrets are alike, some
will love it, and others won't.
 
I was reading my backlog of FML's today and was kind of upset at the way
people were acting towards people who use nose flicking or thumping to stop
biters.  They are making it sound like you're smashing the ferrets face in.
It is kind of hard to see what people mean by "flicking/thumping" I
personnally used "thumping" on all of my ferrets (except Oscar who was a
lover from the beginning) to stop biting.  I never hit them, the thump was
no harder than if I were petting their noses.  It's just hard to find a
word to describe it.  "Thumping/Flicking" are really the only 2 words to
describe the action.  It describes the ACTION not the FORCE applied.  The
sudden action is what makes them stop, not the force.  And yes, I did try
scruffing, hissing, saying no, etc, etc.  and none of it worked (5.5 months
worth of trying) 3 days of "thumping" was all it took.  Snoop never bit
anyone for the rest of her life (almost 8 yrs), and Miko hasn't bit anyone
since she was just over 6 months old (she's almost 2 now).  I see nothing
wrong with it as long as you've tried all other methods and given the
ferrets all a fair chance to clue in, and you don't use it on abused
ferrets or fear biters for obvious reasons.
 
Isabelle
Miko:  Let's go steal mommy's socks....while they're still on her feet.
heh, heh, heh
Oscar:  You go ahead, I'm going to go dig the cr*p out of that carpeted
thingie that she got us for Christmas.
[Posted in FML issue 2663]