Dear Ferret's parents, I'm quite sad tonight, because for the first time in five months, since I adopted him, I was very hardly biten by Igor, that till today has always been more than wonderful with me. Here's the story. In the month of May I bought at my pet shop Orietta, a cute 2 months old female Siamese, and there began my ferret experience, helped in that by my Vet, books and by all I was finding in the Web. Don't forget that ferrets are pretty unknowns as pets in Italy and in many European countries. In the very beginning she tended, as all the puppies, to bite, but never very hardly and I understood that it was her way of playing that never worried, or hurted, me. Here I have to make a consideration on how it is dangerous :-) to have your pet shop in the same block where you live, at less than 200 meters from your door: you pay there a visit at least once a day, when not twice ! After one month the pet shop owners, from whom in the past I bought gerbils, fishes for my little aquarium, and usually dog food for my female German shepherd (believe me, she is the sweetest dog in the world, both towards humans and animals) impressed by the enthusiasm and love I showed for my new little girl asked me if I was willing to adopt a male that another pet shop was going to give to them. And they gave me for free (note that Orietta costed me 200 US $). I was really impressed by him, because he was only one month older than Orietta but almost twice her siza; and he was really beautiful, sweet and friendly, almost never trying to bite. So I took him home, of course I bought a bigger cage plus an additional hammock and so on. He won his place in my family and in my hearth. No problems at all with Orietta, they started immediately playing and sleeping together in the same hammock. Only my dog (by the way her name is Brina) was staring at me as she was asking "So what, one foreigner was not enough in this apartment ??!!" Igor is actually 8 m.o. and 2 kilos while Orietta is 7 and 1,1 kilos, and they look as very happy ferrets, very well cared and loved. Tonight I decided it was time to clean the cage, so I tooked them out and putted them in the previous Orietta's cage. They always allow me with enthusiam to take them and they walk out of the cage directly on my arm. After the cleaning operations I putted them back on their cage, talking with them and playing a bit as usual. Half an hour later I checked them, they went near to me as they normally do when I go close to the cage, so I opened the cage's door to give them some caresses. Much to my surprise Igor took my little finger in its mouth and started biting very hard, I shouted him "No, no !" but he didn't left it and I had to grab him with the other hand and squeeze his throat to have its mouth open. My finger was greatly bleeding from the two holes he made. Holding him by the neck in front of me I shouted several times "Why did you do that ?" while giving him some severe spanks on his back (anyway not hard enough to hurt him ) and I received some shots of piss on the chest. The I putted him back in the cage and I ignored him for a couple of hours. After that time I opened the cage and I took him as usually do and he was as if nothing had happened; I played with him a while and everything was normal. I'm asking if you can give me an explanation of the fact, because I'm absolutely dismayed: he has always been so nice,quiet, calm and lovely. I really didn't do nothing that could have worried or disturbed him, so I will really appreciate if any of you could diagnose this strange, unusual behavior of my boy. I feel bad not for the pain he gave to me (and believe me, it was hard) but because I am very disappointed for something I never could have expected from him. Many thanks. Fulvio [Posted in FML issue 2460]