Kelleen, Yes, my thoughts exactly.  The quality of life is so important for
our inteligent little friends.  I have nine "free ranging" ferrets who not
only have the run of the house, but also of my lovely, old fashioned large
back yard including a double garage sized workshop.
 
Yes, there are rules that must be adhered to.  Chemicals, tools etc always
locked away, frequent perimeter checks, never run a bath without checking
the bathroom for ferrets and shutting the door, and then standing in the
bath until all the water has gone when you have finished bathing.  The list
goes on and on and they become second nature.  Even at my mother's house
where there are no ferrets, I find myself shaking out all the laundry, piece
by piece, as I load it into the washer.
 
My front door is isolated from the rest of the house by a ferret-proof
gateway.  This makes leaving for work, and coming home laden with stuff, a
relatively safe manouvre.  (The gateway is a fairly new addition and is made
of PINK cupboard doors on a frame and matches absolutely nothing in the
house but they were free).
 
Toilet training has been painless and very succesful.  First of all I had
newspaper in practically every corner of every room (there were only 3
ferrets to begin with).  Once they were paper trained, some corners were
left paper free until one corner of each room is the "toilet corner".  These
are tastefully (I think) disguised by bits of furniture where possible.  As
more ferrets joined our family, I sometimes had to protect extra corners for
a week or two, but generally the newies use the same places as the oldies.
Flavia makes me laugh when she rushes in from the back yard to use her paper
in the bathroom.
 
This may all seem a bit like hard work , but it's not really and the joy of
free ferrets is truly rewarding.  They wake and sleep when its convenient
for THEM, not me.  They can interact with each other when THEY feel like it,
or find a quiet place if they "want to be alone".  The greatest joy is when
they come to me for a play or a cuddle or a sleep because they want to be
with me and that's that.
 
Please FMLers of caged babies, consider changing your lifestyle a little and
improving the quality of life of you little friends a LOT.
Love from Shirley and the nine freedom lovers.
[Posted in FML issue 1594]