Do you ever have those instances when your ferrets do something
strange, and you wonder, "What are they thinking?"

Luna Bella offers me a good example. Luna always tries to wear my
bras. I kid you not. In the morning, when I go to dress, I first lay my
clothes out on my bed. If Luna is around, as soon as she sees me lay my
bra down, she climbs up on the bed and tries to get into it. Now, Luna
has a rather odd notion of how a bra is to be worn - she puts her head
through the armholes, so it is dangling around her neck. And, then she
attempts to walk off wearing the bra. Of course, what generally happens
is she gets all tangled up in it, or it slips down her body and off.
Then, she does a little dance, and tries to climb back into it unless I
grab it away.

Now, the above happens on a regular basis. And so, I have to wonder
what her attraction is to my bras, and why she tries this over and over
despite the fact it always fails. If they were my soiled bras, I would
chalk it up to wanting to be close to my scent. But, no, these are my
fresh from the laundry bras.

Connor offers another example. Connor has a family of snakes.
Actually they are a collection of Rik-E Tik-E toys, but we call them
Connor's snakes (for anyone not familiar with these toys -
http://www.bestpetsupply.com/shopping/pricelist.asp?prid=1551 ).
Whenever a new Rik-E Tik-E toy comes into the house, Connor has to
modify it. They come with a small jingle ball in the tail, and Connor
immediately removes that (could this be a form of castration?), and
then allows the toy to join his family of snakes.

Each night, when Connor gets out to play, he searches through the
house rounding up all his snakes, and he lines them up in front of the
entrance to my shower stall. Occasionally, he will put them into the
shower stall, but most nights they are simply lines up side by side
along the entrance. His brother Roarke will sometimes remove the snakes
and carry them off, and then Connor has to locate them and again put
them by my shower stall. Connor is a little OCD, though, so that might
explain this obsession. He has also been know to take pieces of kibble
and line them up around the edge of his cage (I can't even begin to
fathom the meaning behind that).

Meesha is another one with an obsession. In her case, it is her babies.
Ever since she came here, Meesha has had 5 toys she claims as hers. We
have quite an assortment of ferret toys, and many duplicates of things
they really like. The 5 that Meesha chose are all individuals - and are
also in no way similar to each other.

Each day, when Meesha gets out to play, she searches through the house
for her 5 babies, and then collects them and makes a nest for them in
my bed. She puts the babies under the covers, and will also take some
kibble and put in the nest with them. One of these toys is a stuffed
animal that is almost as big as Meesha, and it is amazing to see her
get that thing up on the bed, and then under the covers. Meesha is
a very dedicated mommy, and sometimes will choose to sleep with her
babies. Sometimes she will simply stay up on the bed guarding them
from the other girls. But, most times after she has them all settled
in, she will go off to explore the house.

Valkyrie is our gymnast ferret, or perhaps it is extreme sports ferret.
She jumps and climbs and often goes places where no ferret has gone
before. While other ferrets are playing with toys or each other, Val is
off looking for new challenges. She is my first ferret who regularly
get up on the toilet lid in my bathroom. This is not good, because from
there she gets an the bathroom vanity, and really wrecks havoc. So, one
day, in an attempt to foil her, I left the toilet lid up. Pretty soon,
Val went running into the bathroom, and as I watched, leaped up on the
toilet seat. Unfortunately, she was expecting the lid instead of the
seat, and so she slid <SPLASH> into the toilet. Without missing a beat,
she leapt back out and onto the seat, and then, dripping wet, leapt
onto the vanity. She acted like the dip in the toilet was all part of
the plan.

With Val, I have since learned that leaving both the lid and the seat
up keeps her from getting onto the vanity, so in my bathroom, we
actually want the seat left up.

I could go on and name more examples, but maybe some of the rest of you
have ferrets with similar habits - the kind that leave you wondering,
"What are they thinking?"

Danee DeVore
ADV - If your ferret hasn't been tested, you don't know!
For more information visit:
http://www.ferretadv.com
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[Posted in FML 6173]