A ferret will 'talk ' to you in many different ways if only you can learn how and what they have to say. If something is not right, they will tell you in some way. Jeep's cage was long overdue for a full cleaning. Was a warm day, in fact another record day here so I took the cage outside for that cleaning. Jeep had turned all that kibble into piles of doo doo, a good bucket full that I had not readily seen. This guy is a mess ! Some ferrets are very clean and astute about their habits but some are not and for Jeep is one that is not. I got the cage squeaky clean and dried out. I put the cage back in place where he can watch or at least see me as I watch TV and all. I had replaced all the rugs on the wire mesh floor with Plexiglas to be able to better keep it all clean. Jeep is such a mess the rugs were in terrible shape when I took them out so the only alternative was the Plexiglas. That has worked out very well. Jeep did not make much of any resistance to the flooring change and really didn't mind not having paper backing on the floor to make the floor look solid. I did put the paper on there but that was of no consequence to him. But this time when I put him back he spent all his time wandering up and down to all floors like he was lost and exploring a totally new cage. Every thing that was in there was put back exactly where it had been except an old torn sweat shirt of mine he used once in a while to wrap up in for sleep. That had been the issue Jeep was looking for. He was wandering around looking for it saying under his breath WTF !!!!! It was on the floor here when I was last in the cage and now it is gone! Jeep has only a few places he will sleep but all at once he was using all kinds of different places to snooze. I cleaned the sweatshirt and put it back where it used to be. For sure Jeep calmed down and stopped all that wandering. He was missing that one piece of cloth that had become his. With that being gone his house had been violated which greatly disturbed him. But that piece of cloth being returned settled his ire. Jeep almost immediately lay down on the shirt and took a snooze. It was back and he was whole again !!!! I could hear the AHHHHH miles off. Jeep is back to being himself cool calm and collected. It took me a while to figure out what he was doing and why but when I did it was academic. Jeep was never angry at me, just lost somewhat where one key item of his was no longer there and for sure he missed it. His wandering around was him telling me something was very wrong. So I learned a few new ferret 'words' from Jeep. Now to teach him how to pull start the lawn mower and mow the lawn !!! _12-2Addy CEO [Posted in FML 7759]