Happy Holidays FMLer s Did I miss something or what? I just read the editor s column titled A ferrety initiation in Ferret USA '99 Annual. I really expected to be offended by what I was about to read. But the truth is, I wasn t! My first impression of the article was Funny and a slightly exaggerated however, not so exaggerated that I felt it was a threat to the reputation of ferrets. I was expecting to read about this horrendous encounter with a flesh ripping, aggressive ferret. If you have never experienced a ferret grabbing the skin between your thumb and index finger before, than you haven t handled many ferrets. There is an obvious and painfully difference between aggressive or defensive biting and playful biting. The editor could have easily mentioned an immediate need for medical attention (I never got the impression he needed any though), but didn t. And yes he could have not mentioned it at all. And forget the other positive things that were said. The bottom line is, he could have made it a lot worse or he could have sugar coated it. We currently have ten ferrets and all of them will use their mouth while playing (some more than others) and one of our recent rescues, for some reason tries to aggressively bite only me. And when I say aggressive, I mean one of those clamp down shake her head, hiss and you have to pry her mouth open to get her off type bites, blood included. I m sure it has something to do with that sad excuse of parent she had before us. But we will work this out. She is the exception, not the rule! I can understand getting upset over fantasized facts and staged incriminating pictures. But not true experiences. If the only thing you get from this post is that we have a ferret that is a blood-thirsty attack ferret and all ferrets are represented by this one, then you missed the point. You missed it in a big way! It s funny, we get so offended when somebody even mentions the fact that ferrets are something less than perfect. And we really get fired up when they are classified as biters. I noticed that five out of the six ferret books we have mention something about training ferrets not to nip or explain why ferrets possibly nip. Let alone the countless post to the FML about others who have ferrets that nip and looking for ways to break them of it. We have only two dog books and neither one mentions anything about biting or nipping. We don t have any cat books so I have no idea what they address. And yes I heard the facts, ferrets are two hundred times less likely to bite per capita than a dog. Of course how many dogs are kept in a cage or in a house the majority of their lives, which happens to be two times longer than a ferret. I m also curious just how many times and how many different people a dog has contact within its lifetime compared to a ferret. I got news for you, the wonderful members of this list represent a very, very small percentage of the ferret owners out there. Example: We went to the Grand illumination ceremony an event held in downtown Dayton that starts off the holiday season. Thousands of people were there including some pets (mostly dogs). We took two of our ferrets to the event. Needless to say, we were very popular. We never saw another ferret there and believe it or not, only a couple people mentioned they had one. The point is, we try to take at least one ferret with us (weather and other things permitting) out in the public whenever we can. We are fully aware of the dangers of doing so and limit the amount of handling. If someone asks to pet them, we always present them the ferret in a position that limits or restricts access to their head. This has been mentioned several times on the FML. How many times do you see dog owners doing this? You need to stay in contact with reality. All animals are unpredictable ferret are no exception. I think sugar coating or hiding the facts is just as much of an injustice to potential ferret owners, as the non-informed sales associates at the pet stores. Jerry, Nita and the Ten of Hearts Gang [Posted in FML issue 2510]