Hi Jules. I'm Wolfy. One of the most jovial in this crowd, so you don't ever have to go PC on me when you speak. Just be candid. Laughing at things is very healthy. There are many people here who for educational purposes, and for sensitivity reasons don't feel the same. I respect that. I completely see where they are coming from. On the other hand sometimes the "ferret nazi's" come out in people and that's not good. The good Ferret Oracle will cast a spell on them if they get bad though, so don't worry. Lol. Just kidding. Your play on words is funny. Because when I first found out my ferrets were deaf and that ferrets could be deaf at all, for the first moments that was the word that came to my mind. That they weren't "perfect". Ya know? I went through all sorts of emotions. My husband was different. He was sad for them for a short bit, but then he accepted it and was great. I on the other hand was pounding the keyboard trying to find out any information about it that I could. I felt very alone. That's why I gathered as much information as I could and made a site about it. My site has a lot of good information on deaf ferrets. There is a main page that introduces you to their world, and some of the possible causes of it. From there, you can take a leap to a testing page, behavior page, and a great deaf ferrets E group. Just go to my main site below, scroll to the bottom and look for my "Deaf Ferrets" page. Also on the bottom is a sweet little page called "I wish you could hear me". You might like that. Lastly, here is a page with no link from the main site or deaf site: http://wolfysluv.jacksnet.com/deaf-light.html It has a fun little way to train your deaf (and hearing) ferrets besides with a laser pointer or sign language. Really, especially when they are born deaf and have no poor background... they do not know that they are deaf and are just ferrety ferrets. :) They do well, and don't miss their hearing much at all it seems. Just we do at times. Wolfy http://wolfysluv.jacksnet.com [Posted in FML issue 4555]