>now on a personal note to everyone else: >see this is why NOSE THUMPING in any way is very detrimental to your >ferrets and so is hitting and slapping.... would you do this to your >child??? i think not!!! if you need to do this to an animal PLEASE dont >own or work with any animals for you are not a proper cadidate for one!!! i have to disagree with this. i think that sometimes it is necessary to physically discipline a ferret. that is how mother ferret tells them that they are stepping over the line, and with some ferrets it is necessary. *but* you should never really hurt a pet when you discipline them. a nose thump should be a *gentle* tap on the top of the nose. it should also be used only on ferrets who are biting because of dominance issues, and never on fear biters. it is in *some cases* the best way to demonstrate dominance. you scruff, tap gently on the nose with the flat underside of your fingers, and say "no!" firmly in a deep voice while maintaining eye contact- staring the ferret down. my fizgig bit *fiercely* because of his drive to be dominant (he dominates my other ferrets, one of whome is twice his size, and is *very* determined to be in charge) and recieved quite a lot of nose taps, scruffings and "no!"'s. he is now a very good, loving (so many kissies!) and confident ferret, just like before, only now he doesn't try to bite me. i know that physical discipline of pets is very unfashionable right now, and i think that's great. if one fewer ferrets gets tortured by an ignorant owner then that's all i ask. *but* it really bothers me to hear that i should never use any kind of physical discipline with my pets, and to be told that because i have thumped noses i am unfit to work with animals (which i did for a *long* time). discipline should be gentle, firm and prompt, and i agree that it is entirely wrong to beat a child or a pet for a misbehaviour, but all animals are different and different methods work with different pets, and with some pets gentle firm physical discipline can work wonders. just to clarify what the last poster was saying about screaming- a squealed "owch!" sounds a lot like a ferrets pain scream. often when a ferret is biting toes and hands they don't realise that it is hurting you. by making a ferret pain noise you can say in ferret language "you're hurting me!". this is a really good thing to try with a ferret who is a fear biter, and is not like constantly screaming at them. it is not yelling in anger, it's quite a clever way of communicating with a ferret who can't be expected to understand our language. i assumed that was what they meant when they mentioned screaming when they got bitten. sorry about the length of this post, but i really wanted to get that off my chest. siani [Posted in FML issue 2651]