Dear Ferret Folks-
 
One of the things that we have in common is that we really want to be good
ferret Momies and Daddies.  We want to bring them up right.  We are gentle
with our ferrets, and kind, too, hoping it'll rub off on them.  Hoping
that they won't, say, BITE us.  I've wrestled with 'to scruff or not to
scruff', and 'thumping vs.  time outs'.  I've tried to do the right thing.
 
Well, that's the theory anyway.
 
Because one of mine waited today, until I was practically defenseless,
then she tried to whittle my shin into a more pleasing shape with her
sharp little fangs.  I was in her room watering the plants with a plastic
watering can.  My hands were occupied.  My eyes were occupied.  I was off
balance.  And the licking began right above my ankle.  You know that
lick, the first part of "Lick-lick,CHOMP!" It's an insistant, relentless,
exploratory little lick.  You kick at it and it just moves an inch or two,
them begins again.
 
I kicked gently, not wanting to be bothered to stop what I was doing, find
a place to put down the watering can so that I could (GRAB HER BY THE
THROAT)-nope, nope, gonna think ferret mommy appropriate thoughts, not
gonna launch the Kit across the room like the Mir Space Station crashing
into the Pacific ocean...
 
Lick-lick-lick CHOMP!
 
"Aiiiieeee!"
 
Lick-lick "Stop it!!"
 
Lick-lick-lick "STOP IT!!"
 
CHOMP!
 
"Aiiiiieee!"
 
By now she is tangled up in the hem of my floor-length nightgown, I'm
hopping, trying not to land on her, I'm mad, I'm scared, A Lou Reed album
is pounding in the background faster and faster, I'm trying not to drop
the watering can...there would be broken seedlings and potting soil
everywhere...I was desperate.  And being desperate, And not wanting to
murdilize Switch the Kit but most assuredly wanting to STOP her, I
utilized the only 'safe' weapon at my disposal.  I let her have it with
a quart of cold water from the up-ended can.  SPLAT!
 
Switch jumped about fourteen times her own height and pogo danced to Lou
Reed's thumpin' bass (for the two readers out there who will appreciate
the absurdity of the scene, it's a live performance of 'Heroin' in 1969.
The drums were howling.)  She withdrew backwards under the bureau, hissing,
like Dracula turning into a mist and escaping Abraham Van Helsing and his
sharp wooden stake.
 
Now I'm wet, I'm really wet, and so is Switch, and Sabrina, too, whose
curiousity brought her a bit too close.  She begins to roll at my feet
like a cheap cigar, she is a blur of fur!  I am still hopping, my wet
nightgown slapping and sticking to my legs... I did not feel like a good
ferret mommy.  I felt like a woman driven to the edge by weasels, and
forced to protect herself by any means necessary.
 
The ferrets hate me right now.  Very much.  They are still wet, and so
am I.
 
Alexandra in Massachusetts
 
Switch the Kit: "I was only tasting her a little bit!"
Sabrina the Bat Biter: "Jumped-up jeujune garage band!"
[Posted in FML issue 3768]