Anonymous please Chris.
 
Michelle had a problem with scratching:
>They also damaged the carpet pretty badly in a couple of spots to try to get
>into the closet (nothing a good pair of scissors couldn't fix though).
 
I used to have the "Great Ferret Wall" which was a piece of plywood used to
keep the carpet sharks from getting down the hall.  My last ferret Dixie used
to try to dig through the carpet to get under it.  I had limited success with
dousing the area in ground black pepper (which was easily vacuumed up later).
The sequence would be dig/sneeze, dig/sneeze, dig/sneeze, oh well, maybe I'll
find something else to get into.
 
Regarding declawing: I seem to remember reading something (was it here?)
about a ferret's claws being different than a cat's or dog's in that it was
actually part of the end of the digit.  I know that when you wiggle the claw
on a dog it seems to be "floating" and not rigidly attached to any bone.  The
ferret's on the other hand (pun intended), is much more rigid and seems to
almost be an extension of the bone.  I think that the analogy was made that
declawing a ferret would be akin to chopping off your finger at the last
joint.
 
Chris, I'm curious, how many people on the list are from Massachusetts?
 
[I can't really tell.  People's domain names don't indicate it.]
 
fugitive ferret in MA
 
[Posted in FML issue 0225]