I've had ferrets for
nearly twenty years. Many people think they're extremely cute. If you're looking for a pet that chases and rides the cats, dumps the wastebaskets, digs up the plants, bites your toes and your hamstrings, removes and hides the insoles from all of your shoes and boots, eats the soap, climbs up your computer cables and jumps on the keyboard, cleans off your bookshelves, and poops and pees in every corner of the house, THEN THESE ARE THE PETS FOR YOU!!
Eric and Otto were my first two ferrets ever. I got them as babies, and I didn't know very much about ferrets. I wasn't able to train them not to bite, and they weren't very well litter trained. I've learned a great deal since then, namely how to train them not to bite, and that they really can't be litter trained.
Otto started out as the larger of the two, and beat up Eric quite a bit. Unfortunately for Otto, he stopped growing long before Eric did. Eric never seemed to forget, and always made sure he had the upper hand over Otto. Eric was mostly fearless, except for one thing -- the noisy long-nosed sucky thing. Anything that made a noise like that just had to eat ferrets, right? When I cleaned my apartment, I used to put the ferrets in their cage so they wouldn't be underfoot. Once, I noticed that Eric had his head underneath his blanket, with his butt up in the air, and he was trembling violently. It sounds terrible, but it was really funny, since he was otherwise such a bully. After that, I would pull out the vaccuum cleaner and shake it before turning it on, so he could take cover and pick out the hiding spot where he felt safest.
Once I was going to vaccuum, and I looked around for him. I saw him standing on the sofa. I shook the vaccuum cleaner hose, and called out, "Hey, Eric! Big noise!" He just stared at me, and didn't run under the bed. "Hey, Eric! BIG NOISE!" Still no response. So I took a deep breath, and said, "Hey, Eric! Bhhhjjjjjjjjjjjhhhhhhh!", not turning the vaccuum on, but doing my best to imitate the sound. I must have done pretty well, because he stared at me, his eyes went wide and his shoulders drooped, and then he peed on the couch. Serves me right. Fortunately for me, the apartment came furnished. :)
Eric was unusually destructive for a ferret, and chewed on anything remotely flexible. Yes, that was my running shoe. Yes, I was wearing it at the time. This is another picture of Eric.
And this has to be one of the cutest ferret pictures I've ever taken. It's Otto, asleep on my bed, in my jacket, with his head sticking out of the sleeve.
Eric developed a heart murmer, which got worse until he finally had to be euthanized on 12/15/89. [I'm sorry, "put to sleep" sounds too benign for what it really is.]
Otto lived on for a couple more years. He eventually developed a severe weakness in the back legs as he got older. He was fine on carpet, but couldn't handle linoleum. This was when he was about 7-1/2. He would stop at the edge of the carpet and look wistfully out at the kitchen. I took him to the vet, who suggested steroids. Yes, the banned-in-humans kind. They're banned in humans because they cause liver damage over time. But as the vet said, "By the time he develops liver damage...." About a week after I started him on the steroids, he was zooming around the kitchen with no trouble, and had a great 6 months before he died quietly in the spring of 1991. The medication greatly improved his strength and quality of life.
After Otto died, I got Nancy. Nancy was an only ferret for a long time. She was extremely feisty, and because she hadn't met many other ferrets in her life, she came to believe that she was a little tiny person. She thought that my fiance's two cats were her personal toys to chase and ride (yee-haw!). She didn't seem to like meeting other ferrets, presumably because they forced her to reexamine her place in the universe. Unfortunately, this included Snowy, a ferret I got later to keep Nancy company. Nancy had a pretty good time running around the maze of dryer hose I set up for them, and she was often moving her stash of bells and squeaky toys from place to place to keep them safe from the noisy long-nosed sucky thing, and also from Snowy. Unlike Eric, Nancy was quite unafraid of the vaccuum cleaner, and would chase it around, trying to bite the brush as I cleaned the carpet. I think she would have carried it away if she could.
Nancy had a bout with adrenal disease, but recovered fully after surgery, and lived another 3 years or so. If you want to know what a ferret with adrenal disease looks like, click here. Ten days after the veterinarian removed the enlarged adrenal gland, all her hair grew back.
Nancy died 4/21/98, of insulinoma.
Snowy was much sweeter and more gentle than Nancy was. I originally got her to keep Nancy company, but Nancy didn't like other ferrets, so Snowy became more of a people ferret. Snowy didn't chase the cats, although one of them is still afraid of ferrets in general (because of Nancy). Snowy also liked the dryer hose, but especially liked to play with bows from gift wrap.
Snowy also developed weakness in her hind legs, but didn't respond so well to the steroids as Otto had. The steroids helped a little, but it was marginal. She had been declining steadily during her last year, and often walked with her back feet in "fists", suggesting some degenerative neurological damage. Improving her muscles with medication therefore didn't accomplish much.
Snowy died 2/22/01, probably also from insulinoma.
I learned from the Nancy-Snowy interaction, or lack thereof, and after Nancy died, I took Snowy to a ferret shelter and let HER pick out a buddy. She picked out a ferret named Talc. After a couple of days of watching Talc tear around the apartment, treeing the cats and shoving boxes around, my husband said, "He's not a Talc, he's a Tank!"
Tank is a wild, huge, boisterous boy. Tank isn't very smart, and never figured out the ferret elevator (that's where you bend over and put the back of your hand down near the floor, and they jump into your hand to be picked up). He does enjoy chasing the cats, and playing "ride the towel". Squeaky toys can get him out into the open every time.
For more about ferrets in general, go to that cornucopeia of Mustelid information, Ferret Central.
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