Gail wrote,
>Well, despite my measuring multiple times, I cut the plexiglass too wide,
>and what do you know?  If you just bow it and stick it in the door, it
>stays put.  No fuss, no muss, no screws or nails, and portable too!  The
>ferrets can't dislodge it, and even our gentle Rottweiler respects the
>barrier, although she peers through it at the fuzzbutts, whines, and wags
>her stubby little tail!  Your mileage may vary, but it worked great for me.
 
This is how we did it at first too, but after repeated bendings and
tripping overs I guess the plexiglass just got too weak and broke down
the middle.  We switched to just sliding it in the doorway with small
finishing nails to hold it in place.
 
We've since moved and the ferrets get to play in our living room.  This
presented quite a problem because the living room is separated from the
kitchen only by a rail and a ~1/2 step up.  As a matter of fact the whole
1st floor of our house has no closable doors except to the laundry room and
to the basement.  This means we had to either ferret-proof the whole 1st
floor (yeah right!) or find some way to keep them in the living room.  What
we came up with was a 13 ft barrier made from thin particle board pieces
that slide together in a tounge and groove way.  It only took me a few
hours to make.  I had the boards cut at the hardware store and the only
other tools I needed were a drill and some wing nuts.  The good thing about
assembling it is that you only have to sort of roughly measure and then
when you're making the final peice you can actually hold it in place and
get it exactly right.  The whole thing can be disassembled into ~3ft peices
and shoved behind the couch if company is over.  If anyone wants directions
on how to make a really big barrier like this let me know!
 
We also recently had a scare.  The ferrets managed to get inside the couch,
and after nightmare visions of a ferret squashed in the springs we finally
managed to get them all out.  They had torn a hole in the fabric on the
underside of the couch and crawled through the webbing.  We fixed this by
buying a large peice of hardware cloth (or rabbit hutch wire) and nailing
it to the bottom of the couch with the kind of staples you hammer in.  We
did make sure all of the sharp edges of the hardware cloth were bent over.
So far this has worked.
 
I only mention this because I was watching some Animal Planet pet show one
time and a caller called in asking about how to keep her ferret out of the
couch.  The woman on the show told her that she could train the ferret not
to go in the couch by positive reinforcement.  I just had to laugh.  Is
there anyone out there who has been able to train a ferret not to crawl
into a hole when they find one.  Please, I'd like to know if its possible!?
 
Oh, how many weekends have me and my husband spent building things for the
ferrets?  I don't even want to think about it!
 
Leigh
[Posted in FML issue 2834]