Karen I REALLY enjoyed your post. I know you probably were not trying to be funny, but with a long time of many, many ferrets coming through our rescue I can attest that it is a rare ferret in deed that enjoys taking baths and your very apt description of events at your house was refreshing and amusing. Even ferrets that enjoy playing in a shower or swimming in a tub object to being soaped up and scrubbed down. I can just see your little guys faces turned up to you like flowers in the morning dew asking for scritching, scratching and bathing - it is marvelous. You said one thing that I would like to offer an opinion on and that is your comment that it is not good for ferrets to be bathed often. Now I really don't know what problems could arise from daily baths - maybe a vet would know if daily baths would cause a particular adverse health issue, but weekly baths are not necessarily bad for ferrets. The reason we tell people to bathe their ferrets less and wash their bedding more has to do with their musk odor control. To simplify the explanation - Ferrets have sebaceous glands (oil glands) all over their bodies just as people and other animal do. The particular odor of an animal, the ferret's musky odor, comes with this body oil. When you wash your ferret you strip the oil from his/her coat and skin so the glands produce more oil to replace what you've stripped away. The glands produce even without bathing, but when you bath, just as when you wash your own hair, oil production increases to replace what you've lost (washed away). That's why the more often you wash your own hair the faster it appears oily and so the more often you need to wash it to keep it clean looking. Now if you don't bathe your ferret often (and even if you do) the oil will rub off of their coats and bodies and onto their bedding, your carpet, bedding, couches etc. This oil/musk is concentrated most where they spend the most time - in their bedding. Many people do not care for the strong musk odor of ferrets when they do smell strongly of musk even if they like the gentle musk odor of a clean but not frequently bathed ferret; so the rule of thumb is the less you bathe your ferret the less strong the musk odor UNLESS their bedding is not kept clean. So we also recommended that while people bathe their ferrets less that they wash their bedding more. There's more to it than just that, but that's it in a nutshell. So if you don't care that your ferrets are watching you bathe and asking for their own bath there's no medical or health reason I can think of that would prevent this as long as you're not dropping soap or shampoo in the mouths or eyes. As for the door - all I know that you can do is place barriers of some sort. Home building stores like Home Depot or Lowes carry very heavy plastic or vinyl sheets that can be purchased and cut to size to fit on the floor in doorways and extend beyond the doorway on each side. Some ferrets are not deterred by these barriers and simply move back off of the plastic/vinyl and begin digging on carpet further out. You can also place barriers of Lexan or other materials, even baby gates, in doorways to stop them from getting to a door, but the door frame would still be at risk. The surest way to stop a ferret from digging at a door while you are on the other side is to either let them in, do as you are doing and leave the door open, or put them in a cage until you are finished disappearing behind the intrusive door. If you come up with more creative ideas please share them; I'm sure there are many people who would like new/other ideas. Vicki Montgomery Tricks and Treats Rescue Greater Houston/Galveston Texas 713-472-6599 [log in to unmask] Click to feed shelter animals: http://www.theanimalrescuesite.com/clickToGive/home.faces?siteId=3 [Posted in FML 7375]