>From: "David J.  Ellis" <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Biting ferrets...
 
>I'm pretty sure I've got one that is into biting as a sign of affection.
...
>rough house with her she will respond appropriately.  However, recently
>she has taken to climbing up onto you when you are in the chair and
>settling in.  Shortly afterwards she starts nuzzling the hand or wrist.
>This is usually followed by a short period of licking and then the
>chomp; head twisting if she's got real good hold.  Strange thing is she
>doesn't show any sign to want to rough house if you try to respond that
 
Noodle's exactly the same way - in fact, i was going to post about this
today.  :) He'll crawl into my lap and curl up for some snoozing and
scritches.  WHen he wakes up, he ALWAYS goes for my wrist.  And this is no
love-nip, either; he uses all of his jaw pressure to sink his teeth in and
twist, if i let him.  Ow!  Usually i just disengage him and hold his jaws
together gently with my thumb and forefinger while burbling to him in a
friendly tone of voice, and he stops doing it for the remainder of the day.
He always forgets by the next day, however.
 
As far as i can tell, it's just an "I love you and you're MINE!" or a "You
stopped scratching me to talk to that other ferret, ME FIRST!" Strangely, he
never bites closer to my elbow or anywhere on my hand, just the thumb side
of my wrist.  If he gets really aggressive we will scruff and flick him,
followed by immediate loving, mostly because he also uses this as an attack
on strangers - hops into their lap, then savages their wrist.  Noodle often
forgets the difference between gentle and rough loving, and has never seemed
to understand that violence is hurtful.  He's a very loving ferret, but he's
slightly imbalanced and very easily angered.  So, we chalk his wrist-biting
up to a failure to understand how to show us affection.  :)
 
Melissa
 
  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
      Melissa Litwicki                              "Is it ... atomic?"
      [log in to unmask]                             "Yes! VERY atomic!"
[Posted in FML issue 1785]