Hey everyone...
 
I'm a new subscriber to the list, and I have a question.  Roger Poore from
Ferret Central gave me some tips, but I want to ask this of all of you
guys...
 
I just got my second ferret.  Her name's Nyssa, she's 11 weeks old, and as
you can imagine, she's as energetic and adorable as a li'l fuzzy should be.
One problem, though... I have had ABSOLUETLY NO LUCK litter training her!
I'm told that the best one can achieve is usually an 80% hit ratio (though
my first ferret Adric has absolutely no problems going in the box), but
little Nyssa's batting .000.  I've tried negative reinforcement (standing in
front of her cage when she wakes up, intercepting her as she backs into a
corner, bonking her on the nose and shounting "NO!" real loud, and putting
her in the litter box that I've already festooned with previous accidents) -
she just crawls out of the box as fast as she can and goes to a different
corner.  I've tried positive reinforcement (feeding her ferretone inside the
box) - she licks and licks, leaves the box, and backs into the same
forbidden corner again.  I've tried passive reinforcement that worked with
Adric (placing a shirt stained with Bittter Apple in each of the forbidden
corners) - she just went right on top of the shirt.  At this point, she
seems to have NO UNDERSTANDING of the function of the funny-smelling pan in
her cage, and if she wants to poop in that corner of the cage, she'll either
go in front of the pan, or she'll move the pan aside and go in the corner
anyway.  I am at my wit's end!  Before I try to devise some kind of altered
litter box that she won't notice, can anybody tell me if they've had this
problem before, and what they've done?  Anyway, thanks for indulging me.
Bye!
 
-Gil
Home: http://www.tiac.net/users/blip/blip.html
Music I like: http://www.tiac.net/users/blip/branca/branca.html
Music I make: http://www.tiac.net/users/blip/converge/converge.html
[Posted in FML issue 1745]