Hi, I'm a little behind on my reading on the fml, but i read Jeffs post
and even though i suspect he may already have gotten some answers to it, i
thought i'd give my cents worth, Jeff, if you scruff and give your ferret
time out after she finished her business in the litter box, how do you
expect her to learn anything?  You punished her after she did the right
thing, whether or not you had to help her in the box is of very little
importance to her....:)
 
Anytime you need to punish, or try to teach an animal something you have to
make absolutelly sure that the consequence is in direkt connection to whay
they did wrong, (or right) in my experience though punishing ferrets is
very inefective, you might want to try the reward option instead, for
instance when you see her go potty in the wrong place put her in the box
and reward her for doing her business there.  If you are to late to catch
her doing something wrong, any punishment is cruel and confusing to them.
 
Another suggestion is try using newspaper instead of litter boxes, my
ferrets have improved alot since i started putting down newspapers and
the hit rate is 100% in the playroom, and 90% in the rest of the house :)
 
I still have litterboxes in the cages, but for some reason it seems they
almost don't have time to get in to the box when outside the cage, and it
is easier and faster for them to back on to the news paper, they are in
such a hurry to committ their next deed....:) and it is easy for me to fold
and toss, and replace.
 
I also bought odd pieces of carpet that i can put underneath the news
paper, just in case, large enough that they use it to wipe their butts
on which saves my regular carpet, It works great!
 
Hopefully this helps,
Sincerely
Josephine
[Posted in FML issue 2930]