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Brian,
 
 They say that in order to teach a dog tricks, you have to be
smarter than the dog. It has been my experience that a ferret
will " house break " you. At first when I was trying to train
Sadie I decided that I would accept a litter pan here or there
and that is where I placed them. Sadie went where ever she
wanted to. After a lot of frustration, I gave up and placed the
pans where " she " wanted them.
 I live in a double wide mobil home and I made her a cage over
the bathtub in the spare bathroom. I covered the tub with
plywood,  covered that with linoleum and placed wire covered
frames over the top and front with doors for access. This gave
her a pen of 6' x 2.5' x 3'. I made a ramp into the area with a
six inch board covered with carpet and when the ramp is down
the pen is open and she can go and come as she likes. I was
going to keep her in the pen until she was litter trained, I
wanted to be sure she knew the rules before she was let out in
the house. I had hoped that she would habitually go back to the
pen when she had to go ( I think I hear experienced ferret
keepers laughing ). At first I could not even get her to
consistently use the pan in her pen. She would go right next to
it. I read in one of the books that in the beginning you need to
keep the area small so I put a partition in the pen and only let
her use about a third of the area. This worked, and after a
while I was able to let her have the whole pen area and she
never again went on the floor of the pen (YET).
 When I thought the time was right I let her out into the house
and did I have a lot to learn ! She would go in one corner, and
then another corner, I would clean and sterilize the spot and
spray Boundary and Bitter Apple and Lysol, I tried everything,
she seemed to like the smell of all of those things and would go
right back to the spot I just cleaned. Finally I started placing
the pans where she was going and after a while the accidents
stopped. We have six pans and I clean them twice a day and
some days she uses only one and other days ALL of them. She
has three drawers that are hers and she goes in the bottom one
and climbs up the back of the drawers and sleeps in the second
one up, I have learned that when she gets up , she will use the
first corner she comes to, litter pan or not. So I am careful to
watch and when she changes her nap area, the pans get
changed. She now has free run of the house and we both sleep
better.
 
RE: Nancy Hartmans note about ordering merchandise from
FERRETSTUFF in VA. I would not order anything from them
unless you DON'T NEED IT ! I have  had an order in going
on three months. They cashed the check a month ago.
 
Phil Gentry 72701,[log in to unmask]
                                                                          
[Posted in FML 0180]