On Jan 23, 2008, at 3:00 AM, Misty Hosier wrote:

>Rhea ATTACKED me! I mean she bit me and when I tried to stop her
>she went crazy. Really crazy!! I tried to scruff her and she started
>screaming. Screaming! I let go of her quick and she ran after me
>biting my legs and feet. HARD!! I am bleeding all over.

I have one girl, Lilo, who was this bad. She was an older ferret in
a pet store. The clerk said "you don''t want her - she bites" but we
insisted, and the clerk let her out - and she did bite, so the clerk
THREW her back into the cage, hard. So we took her, and that's why
we consider her a rescue even though she was from a pet store.

Talk about 'tude! Whe she first came home, she was quiet for a week
or two; I think just checking out the situation. But always with this
"I ain't gonna take no sh*t from anyone!" attitude. Then she became
aggressive. I think she was doing two things - one, establishing her
bid to be alpha animal, and two, seeing where the limits of our non-
retaliation were - to see if this home was too good to be true. She
bit! Hard! I have scars on my wrists, my ankles, and even my nose from
her. These weren't just nips, they were the real shake-and-kill bits.
It was a campaign, much as you describe - sometimes she would circle
around, and you could almost see this rage come over her, and she would
run in and bite.

So what did we do?

I would pick her up, gently but firmly, holding her so she could not
bite me, and carry her for a bit. I wouldn't scruff her, but I would be
poised to And if she did bite me, I would just look at her and say "let
GO!". Note that this is not something everyone can do; my reaction to
being hurt is to freeze, not to yell and run. (I once worked with wild
animals, whree this served me in good stead, but it's not necessarily a
survival trait). Anyway - at the beginning, I wore gloves to pick her
up, but once I had her firmly, I would always take off one glove and
start caressing her with my hand, or offer a treat. (I would NOT at
that point have her lick ferretone off me; that was an invitation to
the lick-lick-bite that even loving ferrets sometimes indulge in.)
Sometimes, in reaction to a bite, I would scruff her and then drag her
a few inches along the floor, on her side; this is ferret-dominance
talk and actually seemed to calm her down. And I would gently put
her into a small travel cage for a time- out (not into the big cage,
because I didn't want her to 'get what whe wanted' - to be put down
and left alone - by biting).

Some weeks later, when she would play-nip (a bit too hard) I would give
a small scream. No jerking away, just the noise. This was to let her
know that her nip, which would be perfectly harmless to another ferret,
hurts humans. She looked astonshed at first, but seemed to get the idea
that she had to be more gentle with people.

Eventually - it took months - she became more or less reliable. And for
a long time it depended on who was around. She gave up biting me much
before she gave up biting my housemate; I think because I would always
react calmly, while he would get mad when she bit, scruff her, yell
at her, and shake her. She would slit her eyes and you could see her
thinking "la la la I don't hear you!". And neither of us let her near
a stranger for a very long time. (I tried to get him to change his
reaction, but he felt his reaction was more appropriate, and he had
had ferreets longer than I had. I felt it delayed her progress).

She is still not 100% dependable around unusual flesh. For instance,
she loves to climb in the trousers pooled around your ankles when
you're on the toilet, and you have to be vigilant because eventually
she will try to bite that tempting calf. There is this moment of
hesitation, though, during I will pick her up, look at her, and say
"Yes? you were saying?" and she actually looks somewhat abashed. But
the funny thing is, she will sometimes give a nip (not a bite) when I
put her down again, as if to say "Well, I could have bitten hard!".
And she is the one ferret I can't sleep around; she will come over as
if to snuggle and then bite. (And she will become frenetic when you
try to stop her, so the only recourse then is to put her in her cage).
She still has a certain 'you're not the boss of me' attitude.

Sometimes I think she wants to be put back into her cage, because the
world has just gotten overwhelming. She doesn't want to go in on her
own, but when she's put in she visibly relaxes and calms down.

So what can I advise? I would suggest approaching her as a wild animal,
not as a pet. Yes, she wants to be tame - that's part of being a
domestic animal - but she is afraid, and will test you and test you.
Think troubled teen, not lost child. Do whatever you need to to make
sure she can't hurt you, but be gentle and calm, even when she does
hurt you. If you can't do that - and there's no shame in that, it's not
a normal response - then perhaps her primary handler should be someone
who can. And know that this will probably not be a short-term project.

Good luck with her. My feisty little girl is now just about my
favorite, for all that I have to remind her now and again to be gentle.
Hope this helps. At least to let you know that there is hope.

Claire
with Lilo ("ohanna - family means no one gets left behind- even little
monsters")
ands Missy and Bud. 

[Posted in FML 5861]