It is delightful to read that Ms Brenda Johnson is offering ferret
harnesses and associated leashes. She will even wash them for
recipients who want them. That's great.

Her offer to wash the harnesses seems to indicate that the harnesses
are cloth and not made of leather. So let me address the issue of
escapism from cloth or woven fiberglass harnesses as compared to the
much superior English-made, Figure-8, leather harnesses.

The structure of the English harness (Eh) is quite simple and much
easier to inbelt and unbelt the ferret, since only one small buckle
is present. The Eh consists of one small leather strap loop with an
attached "D" ring. The only other part is the elongate strap with the
attached buckle.

Addressing the ferret with the Eh is simple and straightforward. The
strap circumscribes the ferret's ribcage and neck in two continuous
loops that crisscross overtop the ferret's spine after it passes twice
through the loop containing the "D" ring. This may seem complicated but
it's really quite simple and highly effective in the ferret's security.

Prior to tying the ferret to its outdoor post, the Eh is snugged
tightly around the ferret's corpus by simply lifting the ferret in its
harness by the bitter end and using the weight of the ferret to snug
the Eh to its body contours, just prior to tonguing the buckle and
fixing the ferret to the Eh. This task is quite similar to the task
of cinching a saddle on a horse by tightening the belly strap.

A nylon/cotton cord is slipped onto the "D" ring of a length suitable
to the circumference of the ferret's play ground plane. This "leash"
cord is terminated on the other end by a loop of sufficient size to
allow the cord to be dropped over a vertical ground stake This setup
allows the ferret to move circuitously anywhere in the ferret's plain
of play and also enhances the ferret's habitual digging of its
tunnel(s) Golly, they really love to dig in good old Mother Earth..

Ferrets that are staked outside need no supervision, since the Eh and
the leashing is secure. Very, very few ferrets have shed their Eh's in
my experience, and it is recommended that in a yard of 8 to 10 staked
ferrets (no overlapping ground planes) observations may be made every
half hour or so, just to check up on them.

The chief risk I've experienced in staking ferrets outside seems to be
from red-tailed hawks and bald eagles. Neither of these raptors have
ever descended to ground level out of their perches in the towering
Douglas Fir trees. Usually the hawks/eagles are noisily harassed by my
two pet crows and members of their ilk until they are driven off by the
attacking crows.

There are some very interesting behaviors exhibited by the staked
ferrets over the period of a full day outstaked. If I may I should
like to describe such ferret behavior is a follow-on posting, the most
important one to me is the vigorous chin licks (kisses?) that I get
upon removal of the Eh's at day's end.

Edward Lipinski
Ferrets North West Foundation.

[Posted in FML 6076]