Is there any chance Dancer could be deaf?  I have been doing a lot of
research on deaf ferrets and have found that albinos and silvers are very
prone to deafness or partial hearing as a result of Wardenburg's Syndrome.
It has something to do with pigment cells migrating to the wrong place
during the embryonic stage.  I also learned that many deaf babies end up
in shelters after being abused when they act non-responsive or are fear
biters.
 
I have a little silver deaf girl who is 6 months old & she started out as a
terrible biter.  The third day I had her, she pierced my upper lip when I
put her up to my face to give her a kiss (stupid of me with a new baby, but
I did it out of habit).  That's when her name was changed from Susie to
Buffy.  When I came out of the ferret room with blood running down my face
and neck, my husband said, "That's no Susie, she's more like Buffy" (he was
referring to Buffy and the Vampire show on TV, and never having watched it,
he mistakenly thought Buffy was the vampire; but the name stuck anyway).
 
It took me about two weeks to start realizing that she didn't react to
noise like my first two ferrets.  When I was trying to train her to come
when she heard a squeaker toy with Ferratone, she didn't react to the
squeaker noise at all, but if she saw the Ferratone bottle, she would
come running.  I tested her by turning on the vacuum cleaner when she
was in the room and not only did she not react, she was climbing all
over it while it was on.  No reaction when the dog barks; she doesn't
react to the hair dryer when she's helping me get ready for work in the
morning.
 
So, once I realized she was most likely deaf, her behavior starting making
more sense to me and I changed how I communicated with her.  She gets
spooked by fast movement if she doesn't know I'm in the room with her, so I
kneel down and put my arm out and move my fingers and then the Buffy girl
comes running as though I had called her name.  It took a while for her to
learn to trust, and for me to learn to use body language and sign language,
but she doesn't bite me anymore (still nippy with strangers).
 
To tell you the truth, I wouldn't trade my little deaf girl for anything.
When she takes me gently (and somehow she does do this gently) by the
finger and drags my hand (with my body following, of course) to one of her
hidey holes and works so hard to fit my hand behind the dresser and into a
drawer, my heart melts.  What greater compliment could a ferret give than
to want you in their hidey hole with the rest of their stolen treasures.
 
Hang in there and I bet you will be rewarded big time!
 
Buffy's Mom
[Posted in FML issue 2647]