Dear Ferret Folks-
 
Ping is He got an extra special gift from my husband, Dann, for
Christmas.  (No, my husband's parents weren't Hippies.  His name has two
'n's' because it is an old Scotts family name.) A hammie?  No.  A toy?
No.  Something new and cool to go in the Ferret Room?  Well...Dann did
give them a new funky giant cardboard box with a hole poked into the side
that they like to climb into, and he did give them a brown paper bag that
some potatoes came in....but no.  Those goodies were for both Ping AND
Puma.  I'm talking about what my husband got for Ping, and Ping alone.
 
I won't tease you anymore!  It was a blue plastic 44 quart Sterilite
brand trash can with a very heavy plastic lid, and it has changed *our*
lives, and certainly Ping's.  You see, Ping is what I call a dumpster
diver.  He loves, absolutely *loves* to root around in the trash.  The
wetter, the smellier, the better.  Then he takes his moist treasures
and stashes them in unlikely places.  We find collections of turkey and
chicken bones, food wrappers, chewed cookies, buttermilk biscuits, apple
cores, and if he is really lucky...chocolate bar wrappers.  The evidence
that there once was chocolate, because Ping *ate* it.
 
Ping and his chocolate habit are just...ridiculous.  We have to keep the
chocolate in a metal box called "the chocolate vault" or he WILL get it.
If he is loose while you are eating chocolate, he will run up you, and
try to pry your mouth open.  He will not stop, for as long as he can
smell it on your breath.  I have asked some ladies on this list with much
more ferret medical knowledge than I have if chocolate is bad for him.
They tell me that there isn't much evidence that the compounds particular
to chocolate are a problem, but the sugar most assuredly is, so we live
with the vault.  Both Dann and I have picked Ping up BY a piece of
chocolate clamped in his fangs that he will not let go of.  Dark, milk,
white, it does not matter.  And in a pinch, the wrappers will do.
 
Lately, Ping has taken to sneaking *into* the back of the dryer, and
stashing his little treasures there.  Think melted chocolate.  Think
an unexploded .22 caliber bullet.  (God help us, the ferret is trying
to kill us.)  But most of the stuff came from the kitchen trash can.
 
The formerly lidless, defenseless trash can.  He learned to leap up into
it with one great effort, right from the floor.  Free roam ferrets have
*much more* muscle mass than caged ferrets.  He is like, five inches
tall.  He could leap, and gets his paws up and over the edge of the
standard sized kitchen trash can a few weeks after he moved here, and
moved out of caged life, forever.  He was unstoppable.  He would jump in
ten times a day.  Time outs did not work.  None of the common behavioral
training methods had any effect.  Getting hosed by the sink sprayer
*each* and *every* time I pulled him out of the can had no effect,
whatsoever.  Sopping wet, he would run to the trash can for another
round.
 
Mind you, he knew it was *wrong*, oh, yes.  He knew we didn't want him
to do it.  If he was observed running to the can a yell would stop him
and he would flatten to the floor, but then after a moment he would
crouch-run the rest of the way to the can, and leap in with no
hesitation.  I'd pull him out and he'd give me this *insolent* look....
this King of the Minks look.  Heavy lidded..."What?  What's your problem,
Primate?"
 
We have a 44 quart blue plastic Sterilite brand trash container with a
heavy plastic lid, and we don't have a problem, anymore, you cheapo mink
wannabe!
 
Alexandra in MA
[Posted in FML issue 5105]