Patricia Curtis responded:
>Bob Church <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>They are not completely litterbox trainable.
>I have to disagree with you Bob, as I have several who NEVER miss!!  I
>know this is quite unbelievable to most of you, but there are such ferrets
>in existence.  For the most part, they are kids who became my own personal
>ferrets at a very young age.  My sweet little silver/mitt/badger named Beau
>will even race from two room away to get to the litterbox to go potty!!
 
Potpie NEVER ever EVER misses.  She has the run of the entire downstairs and
she'll always go back to her box to use it.
 
>You have the best chance at this kind of "accident-free" co-existence
>with ferrets if you start them young and remember that they have to go
>potty within two minutes of waking up.  Training is not hard at all, you
>simply wake them up or catch them immediately upon their waking (don't
>allow them to wake up on their own and meander around for a bit) and...
 
Trish is right.  You have to be diligent as all get-out, but it works.  When
I got Potpie she was 6 or 7 weeks old (ugh); we started training by limiting
her play to a very small place, and when she looked like she needed to 'go'
I plopped her into her box and praised her ridiculously when she was done.
I did this for about two weeks, slowly enlarging the play area, until she
'got it' and stopped backing up wherever she was to urinate/defecate.  I
then kept the play area small enough that she never forgot where her litter
box was.
 
Nowadays, I can relocate that ferret from room to room to room, into rooms
where other ferrets have urinated in the corners regularly, and as long as
there is a litter box present in the room she'll use it.  My favorite is
when we let her play in the downstairs ferret room and she climbs into the
OTHER ferrets' cage to use THEIR litter box.  She specifically LOOKS for the
litter box!  Nifty.
 
>potty" means.  The only disadvantage to this training is that some are
>so smart that they "pretend" to go just to get out, in that case, keep
>putting them into the box and repeating the command to "go potty".  My
>Sugar still tries to "fake me out", and she's three years old now.
 
Heh.  Potpie will do that if she's mad at me (she's 4.5 yr now) but she was
a chronic 'faker' for two or so years due to this training method.  It's so
cute. :)  Oh, this letter catches me in a lie.  Potpie will miss the litter
box on occasion, again, if she's mad at me.  She'll either poop wherever I
pissed her off, or she'll stare at me, back up, and poop.  But this is
rare.  :)
 
Melissa
 
 ___ Melissa Litwicki __ [log in to unmask] ___
 By the whole newsgroup devoted tennis showing
     it after scarfing fork and laughters
[Posted in FML issue 1917]