HI, I have an opinion about ferret smell and I would like to tell you my story. I was in Florida and I had to ship my ferrets to Italy early in the morning. I was in a hotel where animals were not allowed, so after having to smuggle them in our room, we had to keep them for the night before leaving and we left them in the bathroom. Of course we didn't sleep that night. The store used to bathe them everyday. The next morning the bathroom had that strong musky odor and we had to hide it somehow. I washed the floor with a cleaner, but the odor was getting stronger. So we decide to try to cover it up with some perfume that we liked and we had just bought. Only two or three sprays and the room was like a gas chamber. The perfume smell was DECUPLICATED. Now I hate that perfume. So I didn't understand what happened, but then it came to my mind something that I read on a flyer about mink scent glands, during a campaign in Italy against experimentation on animals. It said that the glands and the secretions are used as enhancer and stabilizer for perfumes. Has anyone ever heard this before? Maybe the ferret that smelled like chocolate is just because he had some Ferretone left around his mouth or because he liked his body. To me Ferretone smells like chocolate. Now I stopped washing my ferrets that often (I bathe them only once a month) and they don't have that musky odor. I really think that the less I bathe them and the less they smell. Just for curiosity I am making a statistic with italians. I make them smell the ferrets andd I aske them what they think: about 30% say that ferrets have their own odor but not unpleasant, 20% that they have a bad odor and 50% that they have a very pleasant odor: honey, chocolate, some kind of candies and sometimes expensive perfumes!!!!!!!! This is really surprising! I am very interested in California issue. I would like to know the exact reason why ferrets are forbidden. Isn't there any international document about animal rights? I was planning to go to California for my next vacation but I will definately "boycott" it. Ciao Roberto [log in to unmask] A special hello to my friend Rick Beveridge...I don't have your e-mail address in the office so I didn't have the chance to thank you. Ciao [Posted in FML issue 1439]