Jadesun wrote:
>Very true!!  For instance take Nikki...in the evening's I will go in the
>living room to read the local paper, and I say to Nikki, "No foolishness
>tonight!!" No sooner do I get those words out and Nikki starts with the
>'foolishness', a game to him...
 
We are just teaching our younger ones a game which several departed
ferrets liked.  Steve is the focus.  The game is "Trick Daddy" and when
the ferrets hear it they are to sneak up on Steve and splotch on a big
wet nose bump where and when he least expects it.  Shaping toward that
involves a lot of repetition, and me at first carrying the ferrets behind
Steve while he pretends to be unaware, all the while I'm repeating "Trick
Daddy" and imitating the ferret heh-heh-heh laugh, then the ferret gets
to blop the nose-bump on him and we "dash" away laughing some more and
with the ferret being told how good the individual is.
 
Dick, you and Jadesun really made me laugh!  Troy Lynn recently told a
great story of ferrets understanding words well, too.  They are just so
good at it if they are given even a small amount of help in learning,
aren't they?
 
Dick writes and Jadesun replies:
Dick writes:
>>Yes, they do understand words and perhaps even fairly complex
>>sentences.
 
>They really do understand, and it's indeed a level of communication!!
 
Definitely!  Heck, Hale even TRIED TO TALK.  She called both Steve and
milk (Guess who was the push-over for her?) something along the lines
of "mmmmmkkk!", and I was something like "pffftttt!"  She was consistent
in those uses.  Hale was an adult adoptee here 2 decades ago, a retired
breeder who came to us after being seriously injured (eye bitten through)
by a mating male.  She was very much her Daddy's ferret with certain
exceptions such as my navel which she treasured and was certain that she
owned (and made a point of acting like she owned).
 
Risa, LOL!  "Hold that pose"?  Dream on! ;-)
 
Arrrgghhhh, Whizbang just cleared the barrier!  It is about 2 and 1/2
feet tall and she is a smaller than average female -- incredibly strong,
though.
 
Raccoons: Decades ago I raised some which were provided by F&G where I
was located.  I got to do the entire raccoon mom thing (including having
me sample foods and them lick the foods from the inside of my mouth).
(No brain worms in me, BTW; had a brain MRI a few months ago due to my
feet and found that I actually have a brain and it is intact.).  They are
omnivores and can hunt if they want to but our's preferred more easily
come by foods that were available.  Once she went into heat the female
became quite aggressive but the male remained calm.  At once point when
they were full sized we had a major snow storm which damaged their
enclosure.  The female got out, so I plopped the male on my shoulders and
walked around with him asking if anyone had seen a raccoon.  More than a
few times i had to say, "No, ANOTHER raccoon." Found her up in a tree.
(We were going to do a parallel evolution between study Procyonids and
Primates and already had promises of coatis and kinkajoos, and we had
Primates and the two raccoons (and a neighborhood orphan raccoon who
interacted with me but was a wild one I just cared for on the side when
he needed it).  The funding didn't come through.  I was REALLY looking
forward to getting to know those critters, too.) Anyway, yes, I could
see a raccoon posing a hazard beyond the possible disease and parasite
ones to a ferret though usually it would prefer to avoid taking on
anything which might fight back.  (Oh, and in relation to the dog I'd
guess the dog threatened a family (mother and young who hadn't left,
yet), or disturbed a shared winter sleeping hollow (a behavior which has
been found in some regions in winter).
[Posted in FML issue 4501]