>4.) i live in an apartment on the second floor.  we have hard wood
>floors, and rather than having a wall between the stairs and the living
>room, there is a wooden railing.  do you think that i have to put
>something up so that she doesnt jump/ fall from the living room to the
>landing?  i would think that as long as she grows up in the apartment,
>she'll be fine, but shes convinced that she is evel kinevel and she's
>taken several tumbles off of the top of the couch, luckily only into a
>pile of blankets.  do you think its likely she'll want to see what its
>like falling 10 feet?"
 
Hi, Lisa, and congrats on your new baby!  I just wanted to offer advice
about the above.  We have two ferts, and no matter how long they are with
us, they still try to get under our pilot-lit gas stove, try to jump off
our shoulders towards the 55 gallon fish tank 6 feet away (it's covered, so
they'd slam into the glass and get hurt instead of drowning), run under the
rolly desk chair, etc.  They don't have great eyesight, and don't always
judge distances well when jumping off of things, so my advice would be
yes, put up a barrier, because your ferret will crawl through the slats
and may jump to her potential death.  Growing up with that problem won't
necessarily teach her that it's dangerous, and even if she did learn from
experience, that first experience could be her last-you really don't want
her learning that the hard way!  Figure if she CAN do it, at some point
she will-I have found this is the best way to deal with ferretproofing.
 
I can't keep my chair near my computer when I'm done, because the ferts
will get up on the chair and leap to the desk and get into everything,
including the computer-the "Help" files are ALWAYS open when they've been
up here, so I really think they are trying to learn to use the computer.
(LOL-I got up for a minute to answer the phone and they got up here and
deleted my email, which I was able to save, and opened the help files in
question-see, you can't leave the chair here for a SECOND!).
 
Hope this helps!  I'd recommend maybe fitting a piece of Plexiglas to the
area in question-it doesn't look too bad and is hard to climb (make sure
it's high enough not to jump over, too).
 
-April
 
(Vote for Nicodemus in the photo contest):
http://www.gopbi.com/services/pets/slides/contest_other3.html
     and
http://www.sofla.com/services/pets/slides/contest_other3.htm
[Posted in FML issue 3393]