As we all know, exercise is incredibly important for health, but Telemna has been something of a couch potato and has been beginning to get overweight. Her behavior struck Steve and me that she may have worse sight than most, so I tried a bunch of scents on her until I found one she loved (roses) and put that on a toy mousie hung on cord from a stick. TOTAL CHANGE IN BEHAVIOR! She worked her heart rate up to a total buzz and would have kept going chasing the mousie and me through the house (up, down, all over) for longer but i had to stop due to an asthma attack, so next time I will use my inhaler beforehand and we'll work some more on making her happier, more active and more muscular. I figured that I would mention this trick for others whose ferrets have poor vision. As I recall there were additional scent tricks in a past "Ferrets" column by Bob Church, so I will have to dig that out to see which may be most useful for a little girl with poor vision who needs more exercise. BTW, Scent mapping info to make a home safer for such ferrets can be found in both the FML and FHL archives to help ferrets whose vision is very low or who are blind. I think I'll today be doing that to things she might clunk against so that she feels safer running again. -- Sukie (not a vet) Ferret Health List http://www.smartgroups.com/groups/ferrethealth FHL Archives http://fhl.sonic-weasel.org International Ferret Congress http://www.ferretcongress.org [Posted in FML issue 4969]