It is delightful to read that Ms Brenda Johnson is offering ferret harnesses and associated leashes. She will even wash them for recipients who want them. That's great. Her offer to wash the harnesses seems to indicate that the harnesses are cloth and not made of leather. So let me address the issue of escapism from cloth or woven fiberglass harnesses as compared to the much superior English-made, Figure-8, leather harnesses. The structure of the English harness (Eh) is quite simple and much easier to inbelt and unbelt the ferret, since only one small buckle is present. The Eh consists of one small leather strap loop with an attached "D" ring. The only other part is the elongate strap with the attached buckle. Addressing the ferret with the Eh is simple and straightforward. The strap circumscribes the ferret's ribcage and neck in two continuous loops that crisscross overtop the ferret's spine after it passes twice through the loop containing the "D" ring. This may seem complicated but it's really quite simple and highly effective in the ferret's security. Prior to tying the ferret to its outdoor post, the Eh is snugged tightly around the ferret's corpus by simply lifting the ferret in its harness by the bitter end and using the weight of the ferret to snug the Eh to its body contours, just prior to tonguing the buckle and fixing the ferret to the Eh. This task is quite similar to the task of cinching a saddle on a horse by tightening the belly strap. A nylon/cotton cord is slipped onto the "D" ring of a length suitable to the circumference of the ferret's play ground plane. This "leash" cord is terminated on the other end by a loop of sufficient size to allow the cord to be dropped over a vertical ground stake This setup allows the ferret to move circuitously anywhere in the ferret's plain of play and also enhances the ferret's habitual digging of its tunnel(s) Golly, they really love to dig in good old Mother Earth.. Ferrets that are staked outside need no supervision, since the Eh and the leashing is secure. Very, very few ferrets have shed their Eh's in my experience, and it is recommended that in a yard of 8 to 10 staked ferrets (no overlapping ground planes) observations may be made every half hour or so, just to check up on them. The chief risk I've experienced in staking ferrets outside seems to be from red-tailed hawks and bald eagles. Neither of these raptors have ever descended to ground level out of their perches in the towering Douglas Fir trees. Usually the hawks/eagles are noisily harassed by my two pet crows and members of their ilk until they are driven off by the attacking crows. There are some very interesting behaviors exhibited by the staked ferrets over the period of a full day outstaked. If I may I should like to describe such ferret behavior is a follow-on posting, the most important one to me is the vigorous chin licks (kisses?) that I get upon removal of the Eh's at day's end. Edward Lipinski Ferrets North West Foundation. [Posted in FML 6076]