I am allergic to our three ferrets, and here's a few things we do so that I can enjoy playing with them and having them in our house, even with all of the windows shut. First, we have NO litter or shavings or anything else in the cage, or in the house. They are trained to do their business on newspaper (and yes, we go thru a lot of newspaper), but there is no dust, no dirt or balled up pee or poop, grime, and we clean out the bottom of the cage every day with a simple Lysol wipe. We change the newspapers 3 times daily. Second, I wear a surgical type mask when I am directly handling them for any length of time. I get the masks thru Amazon . com, and depending on what kind you get, they can be pretty cheap. Third, each ferret gets about 0.5 ml daily of ferretone. Not only is it a treat for them, but it keeps their fur and coats beautiful and reduces shedding to almost nothing (for the vast majority of the year, other than during coat changes). Also, we have an air filter in most rooms of the house, and they run when all of the windows are shut (cold weather season). They clean and ionize the air (they're a good idea even without ferrets). I'm sure that there are other ways to fight the allergies, but these have worked VERY well for me. Jeff Remembering Neo Caring for Trinny, Morphy, and Baby Girl [Posted in FML 5723]