Brandon said:
>"When they are doing a war dance or flopping around in excitiment doing
>sommersaults waving limbs wildly, I'll try that too.  They seem to
>understanding I'm "dancing" with them.  Though I have to be careful
>because I'm 6'6" and have long arms!"
 
HAHAHAHA very cute Brandon.  I just about choked on my coffee this am when
I flashed on the mental picture of this huge man jumping around and waving
his arms with his ferrets!!!  very, very cute!!
 
I too make an effort to communicate with my ferrets and to understand what
they are trying to communicate.  Until I realized Oakley was deaf I had
major problems with him face biting out of anger.  Once I started
comunicating with him via hand signals and watched his body and face
language more...it made all the difference in the world.  No more bites.
 
Our newest ferret Lancelot was very shy and skittish with hands. (not feet
or anything else, just hands.  Led me to think he may have been hit or
mauled alot before we got him)  One evening I lay down on the floor and
just let Lance wander around me and sniff me.  Finally he decided to take a
nip of one of my hands.  I lay still and just let him.  At first he would
nip, then go tearing off.  After about 20 minutes of this he finally
started chewing on my hand and just staying.  He never bit hard enough to
draw blood but I did end up with a few divits!!  It seemed to make all the
difference in his attitude and trust levels.  I have done this with him a
few times since and he is becoming less skittish with hands.  This is very
rewarding to see.  It goes against everything regarding nip training but I
think once we have trust established with this guy then we can worry about
nip training.
 
Brandon said he scruffs his ferrets with his mouth when they are being bad.
We do this when they bite us too hard.  Yes, people think it is gross but
the look of surprise on Footsie or Oakley's faces when it happens is really
quite comical.  I don't believe in nose flicking and scruffing with my hand
only seems to make my ferrets think I want to play.  When we were nip
training Footsie the only effective tools were time-outs and scruffing her
with our mouths.  I forget who from FAST suggested this to me at a frolic,
but it would appear that we are not the only ones who find this usefull.
We do not hurt the ferrets (I do not believe in punishment via pain) we
just gently scruff with our mouths and they always look like they cannot
believe we just did that to them!!
 
Thankx for the post Brandon.  It gave me my morning grin!  :O)
 
Cindy Smith
and the three grinning ferrets - Footsie, Oakley and Lancelot
[Posted in FML issue 2399]