Being relatively bored today, John and I decided to take Potpie over to his new apartment to explore for a while. I hadn't checked his apartment for ferret-proofedness, and figured I'd just follow her around while she explored. Well, she did a perimeter search of the place, and found all the non ferret-proof spots for me (grin). However, none of them were serious, except for an under-the-kitchen-counter hole that lead to sites unseen and unknown. While she was trotting around the rest of the place, if she got to something she probably shouldn't have been in, I just redirected her with a toe. However, when she sniffed at the counter kickboard hole, I yelled "NO!" and dove for her, pulling her back before she disappeared. She continued around the rest of the house normally, dooking here, skittering there. Well, at some point I started chasing her around (one of her favorite games pretty much from day 1 - chase, tag, and hide n seek) and ZOOM she went under the couches, SKID she went around the corners, until at one point she SAW THE HOLE. That part of the ferret brain that says "I ain't supposed to go there - YIPPEE!" went into overdrive and she laid it all flat out in a run for the gap in the kickboard - until I came around the corner and saw where she was headed, yelled to John (who was standing there innocently eating fudge) to catch her, and he got her by the butt just as she slithered under the cabinets. Ferrets *do* laugh - Potpie was clearly incredibly amused by the entire thing. She tends to look upon 'things I'm not supposed to do' as something she humors me with, but darn that ferret, she USES those things when she really wants to get my attention - play, sleep, or anger. I give her enough positive attention that I know she's doing it out of sheer contrariness. Heh! Melissa and the four furballs __ Melissa Litwicki ____ [log in to unmask] __ By the whole newsgroup devoted tennis showing it after scarfing fork and laughters [Posted in FML issue 2139]