Hey There! Flat ferrets- Seymour always does this at my feet when he wants to be petted. He doesn't really like to be picked up, but he loves me to stroke him between the ears. Mmmmm.... Outside- I really think that people should try to get their ferret to take a walk once in a while. I mean, don't force him if he really hates it, but I wouldn't give up completely just because they don't seem to be having a blast at first. Seymour seemed kinda shy and frightened the first few times I tried taking him out, but now he really loves it. And it seems to make a difference in his personality at home, too. He is much more lively and energetic when he's been walked recently. I'm not sure why, but it really seems to put a lot of spark into him. He also *adores* strangers especially children. He is such a little ham and he just wants to show everyone how cute he is! I know he won't bite, and I am not afraid of kids doing anything to him, I mean, I'm holding him, what are they gonna do? I know that there are lots of ferrets who are terrified of being outside, but if your ferret just seems a little shy, I would still try to get him to learn to enjoy the great outdoors :-) Keeping cool in the cage- We once lived with some people who had a cat and who were really cold-natured, that is, they didn't use the air conditioner as much as I would have liked. During this time, I noticed that sometimes Seymour and the cat, Nala, would go into the kitchen and stretch across the floor belly down. I wondered why they did it so often, and after thinking about it much longer and harder than I really should have had to, I realized the the tile on the kitchen floor stayed nice and cool, even when it was pretty toasty in the house. So we bought some individual tiles (they are not expensive) and put them in Seymour's cage so he could use the same tecnique in there. If you live in a *really* hot place, you could combine this with some of the other methods of keepin' cool. And that's all I've got to say about that. See ya! -Barbara "How do I get rid of this stupid box at the end of my posts?" Thomas *********************************************************************** | your name here | | [log in to unmask] | *********************************************************************** [Posted in FML issue 1539]