HI,
I have an opinion about ferret smell and I would like to tell you my story.
 
I was in Florida and I had to ship my ferrets to Italy early in the morning.
I was in a hotel where animals were not allowed, so after having to smuggle
them in our room, we had to keep them for the night before leaving and we
left them in the bathroom.  Of course we didn't sleep that night.
 
The store used to bathe them everyday.
 
The next morning the bathroom had that strong musky odor and we had to hide
it somehow.  I washed the floor with a cleaner, but the odor was getting
stronger.  So we decide to try to cover it up with some perfume that we
liked and we had just bought.  Only two or three sprays and the room was
like a gas chamber.  The perfume smell was DECUPLICATED.  Now I hate that
perfume.  So I didn't understand what happened, but then it came to my mind
something that I read on a flyer about mink scent glands, during a campaign
in Italy against experimentation on animals.  It said that the glands and
the secretions are used as enhancer and stabilizer for perfumes.
 
Has anyone ever heard this before?
 
Maybe the ferret that smelled like chocolate is just because he had some
Ferretone left around his mouth or because he liked his body.  To me
Ferretone smells like chocolate.
 
Now I stopped washing my ferrets that often (I bathe them only once a month)
and they don't have that musky odor.  I really think that the less I bathe
them and the less they smell.
 
Just for curiosity I am making a statistic with italians.  I make them smell
the ferrets andd I aske them what they think: about 30% say that ferrets
have their own odor but not unpleasant, 20% that they have a bad odor and
50% that they have a very pleasant odor: honey, chocolate, some kind of
candies and sometimes expensive perfumes!!!!!!!!  This is really surprising!
 
I am very interested in California issue.  I would like to know the exact
reason why ferrets are forbidden.  Isn't there any international document
about animal rights?  I was planning to go to California for my next
vacation but I will definately "boycott" it.
 
Ciao
Roberto
[log in to unmask]
 
A special hello to my friend Rick Beveridge...I don't have your e-mail
address in the office so I didn't have the chance to thank you.
 
Ciao
[Posted in FML issue 1439]