Hello everyone,
 
It has been a long, long time since I have written, but perhaps a few of
you still remember me.  I have two wonderful ferrets named Jitterbug and
Monkey.  (For those of you who remember that Jitterbug had lost all of her
hair and that I was agonizing over the "to have or not have surgery"
question, she did not have surgery and on Christmas eve magically grew back
all of her hair.  She is beautiful and bushy and almost 7 years old now.
Happy and never seemed healthier.)
 
I am now about to get a cute little addition to our family in the form of a
beautiful black labrador puppy named Houston (after her birthplace).  I am
wondering if anyone can give me suggestions for how to make this transition
easier on my ferrets.  I have never had ferrets and dogs together, nor have
I ever trained a puppy from 8 weeks old.  I am sure it will be a wonderful
challange and would appreciate any and all advice (minus, never have a dog
and ferrets together - I have already made the decision to have both and
don't want hate mail or "I know you said you didn't want it, but listen to
this horror story" mail).  Also if any of you know of a mailing list for
Labradors, I would know where it is so I can take the best care of all of
my babies.
 
***Please send all responses to [log in to unmask] as I am very backed
up on my FML reading and don't want to wait to hear responses.  Thanks so
much.
 
Also, for those of you with ferrets that refuse to go in the litterbox when
out in the house, here's a solution that I have never seen on the FML, but
that has proven quite effective for me.  If my ferrets were sleeping when I
decide to take them out to play, I make them go in the litterbox BEFORE
letting them out.  They very quickly learned that to poop in the litterbox
meant freedom and now look at me and run to the litterbox whenever they see
me.  Of course I reinforce this behavior pattern by letting them out
whenever they do this, even if they were faking.  But first I try to put
them back in the box a couple of times and say "Monkey, go".  If they get
out 3 times without "going" I let them out anyway, assuming they must have
gone earlier.  If they were awake when I go to them, I only put them in the
box once and let them fake (since if they were up and had to go, they
probably would have already).  While this method isn't 100%, it works
better than anything else I have tried.  Good luck and happy ferreting.
[Posted in FML issue 2674]