The reservior for Lyme Disease is small ground nesting rodents which are fed upon by the very youngest ticks. Then when they are bit larger but still very tiny these ticks come out and bite something along the line of at least 30 natural hosts (although they are called deer ticks) and these early bites are what transmit Lyme Disease. It is not passed from animal to animal. If the dog brought in more of these early instar (life stage) ticks then it is possible that some of those ticks wandered and ate from someone else (including you) while still holding the infection and it is this which passes on the disease. The mammals and birds on which these ticks feed do not pose a risk other than being a source of transportation for young ticks which might not yet have shed all of the disease that they picked up from the rodents. I have not heard of the disease being confirmed in ferrets at this point. See http://fhl.sonic-weasel.org/browse.php?msg=YG12126 http://listserv.cuny.edu/Scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind0303&L=ferret-search &P=R24483 http://listserv.cuny.edu/Scripts/wa.exe?A2=ind0303&L=ferret-search &P=R23698 The Critical References in http://www.ferretcongress.org may have some more recent data. You'd need to check. Nipping: http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Lofts/1083/probintro.html [Posted in FML issue 4583]