Mark Z wrote about his ferret's hissing reaction when he started playing his
clarinet.  Well, my experience was considerably more violent.  Having read
about the hysterical and puzzling reactions of ferrets to squeeky toys, I
pulled out an old harmonica and gave it a hoot to see if I could get a
reaction.  RikkiTikki & Emma both came running, but while Rikki was merely
curious about it, Emma went positively wacko.  She tried over and over to
run right up my pants leg to get up to the source of the noise.  I put it
away.  Shortly after, I bought a rather large squeeky Snoopy dog.  Again,
both came running, but little Emma looked frantic.  When I squeeked it
again, she grabbed the heel of my hand and took a big chunk out of it!  I
mean I was losing blood!  I couldn't tell if she wanted to attack the THING
and just grabbed me by mistake, or if she wanted to attack ME for hurting
the poor Snoopy, but I was not in the mood to conduct further tests.
  Anybody else notice any sex-linked behavior with ferret responses to
squeeky noises?  BTW, the squeeky Snoopy is now a neighbor child's toy--and
my hand has finally healed.
 
--Sue
[Posted in FML issue 1245]