Mary,
 
Don't get rid of your dog yet!  We are in a dog and ferret household now and
are working out the same issues you are.  We have had our dog (one-year-old
English Mastiff female) for six weeks and are slowly habituating her to the
ferrets.  She is a calm and very low prey drive dog and the outlook is
promising.
 
In the meantime, we keep the ferrets and the dog strictly separated.  She is
allowed to sniff them and interact with them while she is laying down and
sleepy--one-at-a-time.
 
All other times the dog and ferrets inhabit separate rooms of the house.  I
found after we had Nala a couple of weeks, she didn't mind me going into the
ferret room to spend time with the furrbozos, but at first she was jealous.
I also felt guilty that my ferrets were being deprived of attention and
freedom by the dog's presence.  In fact, they are spending quite a bit of
time in the cage these days, as access to our backyard is through the ferret
room.  BUT, they seem very happy and only spend hours in the cage that they
would be sleeping anyway.
 
The dog is now bored of the ferrets and they of her.  Perfect.  We feel
secure knowing that she will not bust them out of the cage and kill them.  I
am also not as worried about escapes because she seems to want to get out of
their way on rare occasions when one is running around in her presence.  It
seems unlikely that we are setting ourselves up for tragedy.
 
Also, we had her playing with a very tiny dog (almost ferret sized) the
other day and she was most gentle, lying on the floor and accomodating her
play to the dog's size AND tolerating much nipping and provokation without
retaliation.  We are trying to convince her that ferrets are wierd puppies.
It will probably almost work, except that Mortimer sometimes acts like a
scared rabbit and that worries me.
 
Anyway, here are some other tactics we've tried to smoothe the process:
 
1) Give the dog a blanket.  Let him sleep on hit.  Take the blanket away.
   Let the ferrets sleep on it.  Give it back to the dog, etc. etc.
 
2) Spritz the ferrets and yourself with a bit of perfume.  Let the dog
   take in the situation.
 
3) Expose the ferrets to the dog when both are sleepy.  Let the ferret sniff
   the dog's behind.  Let the dog sniff the ferret's behind.
 
4) Introduce the dog to a lot of other animals including very small dogs.
   Praise him for being calm.
 
If the ferrets are freaked out about the dog's presence, they will probably
get over it.  They enjoyed sniffing the dog from the safety of the cage in
the early days.  Mortimer especially was very worried.  I think he feels it
is his job to defend the nest.  He's now pretty uninterested in her.  It was
funny to see the ferrets hissing at the dog through the cage, and her
hugeness playbowing and barking in return.
 
Nala is good enough that I am planning on letting her be in the room while
one of them runs around (on a pinch collar--she's a HUGE dog) and
acclimatize her to that.  I would welcome any other suggestions or tricks of
the trade that any dog/ferret people have to offer.  I think we picked a
good dog for our household.  Now, if only we could master the downstay and
the come (especially the come *sigh*).
 
-Catherine
[Posted in FML issue 1924]