Taming the savage beast...with home-made peanut buttah...

[Chief]

Our rescue ferret Pandamonium has come a long, long way since she made her debut a few months back. When she first came aboard she had a severe biting problem. She was scared of people, terrified of me, and would bite hard if you got in range.

It took a lot of steady patient work with her, but what finally did the trick is my home-made peanut butter. About half of ferrets like peanut butter, and it's good for them in small doses. Once we figured out what a fiend Panda is for the stuff, it was a simple matter of putting a small spoon of the stuff in her face when ever she had to be picked up, like for a nail trim...

Now, she demands to be picked up, hoping for a snoot full of the good stuff, and she has stopped biting completely. You can see the look of bliss on her face, eyes closed and snarfing as fast as she can...

mrgrn

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v645/SeniorChieftain/Ferret%20Follies/001-1.jpg

She also likes to wipe her face on my arm, then lick the peanut butter off...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v645/SeniorChieftain/Ferret%20Follies/002-1.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v645/SeniorChieftain/Ferret%20Follies/003-1.jpg

Too much fun!!

mrgrn

[Waterbuffalo]

I was wondering when Panda-moan-ium was going to show her face?

So ferrets love home made peanut butter? Never new that one.

So what else does the little girl like to do now that she has been around the abode a few more extra months?

[Chief]

She has figured out that my dresser has no bottom panel, and that she can climb all the way up inside and root around in my top drawer without being noticed.

She's actually turned out to be a fun little ferret, although I don't think she'll ever lose her frenetic ways, or be good with kids. She likes to play with the begger ferrets now, and they keep her in line. I think she learned more about not biting from the other two than she did from me. If she bites one of the others hard, they bite back hard...

[Waterbuffalo]

Sounds like you have a self-styled rooter in your midst?

Lucky she is learning some basics from your other ferret kin to have a few manners. But like you said, she's not going to be perfect and will have to be put away if company comes over.

Reminds me, got any flying rats from the backyard?

[Chief]

Not a rooter, a sneak-thief. She goes after anything that smells like me and tries to hide it. Last night I caught her stealing my remote control for the TV set. God only knows what she thought she was going to do with it, (or where she intended to stash it...) but I headed her off in time, this time.

For the un-initiated, I let my ferrets out of the cage for an evening run every night. They get an hour run while I clean their cage, then they go back in for snax and a nap. They run like all hell is chasing them, and they bear close supervision to keep them out of too much trouble. We have also "ferret-proofed" our home and shut certain rooms completely off so we don't have an accident or an escape...

mrgrn