My hubby and I cleaned up a whole bunch of old papers and things that had
accumulated on our bedroom floor.  When we were done, I got a bucket with
some water and Murphy's oil soap to clean up some ...um, er, surprises we
found in the corner.  Hehe.  The ferrets thought this was a great game and
kept trying to steal the rag away that I was using.  I finally shooed them
away, finished wiping the afflicted area, and turned around to find Mortimer
IN the bucket.  Yes, he was splashing around in the warm soapy water, having
a great time and drinking it as fast as he could.  I rushed him to the
bathtub, to minimize the amount of Murphy's he injested.  I have never
bathed Mortimer.  He's huge and I didn't want to wrestle with him and he
doesn't have fleas, so I never thought the battle was worth it.  It turns
out I was missing a lot of fun because Mortimer loves baths.  I turned on
the water, and he would alternately dash under the faucet and splash around,
and run to the "dry" end of the tub.  I played some more "attack the wet
washcloth" with him.  Then I had to forcibly dry him off because he is happy
to walk around dripping wet (unlike the aristocratic Prince Sebastian of
Marshall Estates who must get every drop of water off his coat immediately).
I think this is final evidence that Alan sold me an otter.  :)
 
I've also been teaching my guys to roll over.  I've had about four lessons
with each of them, using licks of ferret-vite as incentive.  Mortimer has
about four times the attention span that Sebastian does, but they are
learning at the same rate.  I'm at the phase now where I just push them onto
their bellies and circle the num nums over their nose.  Sebastian does one
or two roll-overs, then announces that he is "not a circus animal, excuse me
please." Mortimer doggishly rolls over and over and over until he is
completely full of treat.
 
Sebastian has taught himself quite a few tricks.  He delicately pats our
feet or tugs on our socks with one front foot when he wants to be picked up.
It's really irresistable.  Wish he was more of a glutton.  He'd learn a lot
of tricks fast.
 
Can anyone think of other tricks to teach ferrets besides roll over, play
dead, and sit up?  Will they retrieve?  I thought it would be fun to teach
them to pretend-maul my feet on command --perhaps a verbal command like "Do
they bite?" *grin*
 
-Catherine Shaffer and
Sebastian "How humiliating!  I'm outta here!" and
Mortimer *poof* *roll* *splash* *CHOMP*
[Posted in FML issue 1449]