I was shocked tonight by my 10 week old ferret.  I heard jingling bells
under the bed and got the flashlight to see what Snookie was playing
with.  He had a cat's toy with a jingle bell on the end of it (one of the
cats must have brought it into the bedroom).  Snookie is deaf, so I use
the flashlight to get his attention.  He came out with it and I grabbed
it from him (do not want any jingle bells on anything near a ferret for
fear of them swallowing it) I noticed it had a big rip in the bottom.
I picked Snookie up and he grabbed at the catnip mouse and would not let
go!!!  When I tried to pull it away from him, he let out a sound like the
Tazmanian Devils do!  He was actually MAD!  I have never seen this sweet
boy do this before.  I thought he was going to go nuts and even bite me!
I realized there was catnip in it but did not think it affected ferrets.
In this case I believe I thought wrong!  When I put him down he looked
everywhere for it.  I took it out of the room even though he was
persistantly looking for it.  I got out a bag of catnip and brought it to
him to sniff and he was really getting into it.  I pulled that away also.
My question is, has anyone had a ferret react to catnip???  I am still
stunned over this.  Is it because he is deaf and his sense of smell is
stronger or extra sensitive to catnip?
 
Eleanor, Donald and the 8 fuzzies
[Posted in FML issue 5051]