>From:    Roger Vaughn <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Strange Biting Behavior
>
>Digger, my 9-mo.  old gib, has recently started a new biting behavior
>that I find kind of strange.  I think it's his way of showing affection,
>but I'm not sure....
>
>If I'm down on the floor with him, or somewhere he can bite my arms, he
>will come up and chomp down on them!  He will lick for a bit, jockey for
>a good grip, and then, chomp!  he will bite down as hard as he can
>without breaking the skin.  Then he'll start all over, lick, find a new
>spot, and bite down again.
 
wolfie used to do the lick-lick-chomp routine, though he's grown out of
it.  he didn't switch spots, though... he pretty much solely targeted
inner elbows.
 
loki has a biting behaviour that i find peculiar... he just gets in these
obsessive, driven moods where he is bound and determined to chew ont he
nearest human.  no amount of discipline will deter him when he gets into
one of these moods, nor is any foamy fry or other chewable toy/treat an
acceptable substitute.  he will slowly aproach, and just start gnawing.
scruff and drag him away, and he comes bak more quickly... it's
*extremely* deliberate, and while not outright agressive (none of the
quick chomp action i associate with problem biting), it's certainly not
playful or affectionate, either.
 
but then, this is the weasel who strikes me as being much like a severely
EH child, anyway....
 
>friend is wrong.  However, I have a friend who has had arsenic
>poisoning, suspected from burning wood.  Not the kind that we are
>talking about here, wood stove pellets, but from an old deck around
 
pressure-treated wood has an alarming quantity of arsenic in it, which is
disturbing when you consider that it's what's used i those *wonderful*
wooden playgrounds that my contemporaries and i loved as children...
 
you can find all sorts of info on this if you go to
http://www.sptimes.com and do a search for "pressure-treated wood".
they did a long investigative series on this issue a year or two ago.
 
-kat-
 
=====
,',',     __
\    `'`,/  \ ()o=;
 `'`','`/  . \/ /
       (  / \" /
        \(_  \(_   ferrets may nip, but people just suck.
[Posted in FML issue 3663]