I've been reading quite alot about nose thumping and people's opinions on it and for the most part I gather its not an effective way to train a ferret not to bite, it seems to cause more harm than good. So I was very shocked when I went to a large ferret event this past weekend and saw one woman sitting holding her ferret and smacking him on the nose with her hand, not a finger, but her whole hand. Thank god she handed the ferret to a woman sitting next to her. The next thing I saw that upset me was a woman who had ferrets for sale and she was sitting next to the pen where the ferrets were and was petting a ferret and every time he bit her she flicked him on the nose and when he did it again she flicked his nose harder. I didn't know what to do, I walked away because I couldn't watch her keep doing this. I didn't have the guts to confront either of these people about this. On another note, I need some advice on something. I know some people who have a couple of ferrets (I don't know them well) and I hear they don't take very good care of the ferrets. I don't know if they know much about ferrets or not. How could you talk to someone about taking better care of their ferrets without offending them? Sandy [Posted in FML issue 2661]