I adopted a silver mitt blaze, female ferret from our local shelter last Sept., that I discovered was deaf after bringing her home. I had volunteered working at the shelter this one day, and was in and out of this ferret's cage, changing water, food, litter pan, etc. I talked to "Misty", and she watched me carefully, and off and on tried to get out of the kennel. I took her out eventually, and held her. She seemed very content to have me hold, and she was very relaxed and affectionate, giving me kisses. Our shelter director alerted me that the markers on her kennel, meant that she was a "biter". That was sort of surprising to me because of the affectionate, non-aggressive way Misty was acting. As I discovered, Misty was indeed deaf. She didn't even hear my noisey vacuum cleaner. Why she didn't nip/bite me I don't know, but perhaps not knowing she was a designated "biter" to begin with had something to do with it. I wasn't automatically "afraid" of her, and I was talking to her, so maybe perhaps Misty sensed I wasn't a threat, so she stayed relaxed. Misty was a "stray", and that is why she was brought to the shelter, so we don't know her previous situation. It seemed that she was simply afraid, after being brought to the shelter. She was seeing new people and other ferrets around her, and being in a different environment, probably accounted for her biting. She didn't appear to be abused, and my guess, is that her previous owner didn't realize Misty was deaf. I've heard that the blaze coloration ferrets tend to be deaf, but Misty adapted very well, and very quickly to the other ferrets in our household. She has no problem with taking care of herself, and if a ferret wants to tease her, and Misty isn't in the mood, she just screams. It's her defensive mechanism, and it works rather well at making the other ferret go away. Misty always takes time out to seek affection and interaction from me and my husband, but she does have her favorite ferret pals here, and acts quite normal in her play and general behavior patterns. Phyllis B. [Posted in FML issue 3081]