From:
Sukie Crandall
Date: 2001-03-03 22:51:00 UTC
Subject: Re: Long Question on Ferret Behavior
Amy wrote:
>Tequila, after about a month has accepted Critter, however she has
>no idea how to play with a ferret, it scares her. My others (except
>Rascal...he's downright mean sometimes) all treat her reasonably
>well. However when they try to play with her (no teeth involved,
>just hip checking) she screams bloody murder. She hisses, runs and
>sometimes has the poop literally scared out of her. I've tried
>several different approaches and have not had much success.
Sounds exactly like how Seven was more than a year ago. She simply
had not had a chance to learn. We first put her (once her quarantine
was done) near the others so that she could watch how they interact.
Then we tried supervised play. She finally was "adopted" by Glueball
who slowly taught her things about interaction that we could not.
Seven still has socialization problems and likely always will because
she never got to interact freely in her youth, but she has improved
greatly and shares a home with all the rest. Her only time of
terrible reversion was with her adrenal neoplasia. Time, patience,
supervision without a lot of interference except when they go places
like the underside of the throat or genitalia, and an eventual
ferret-friend to guide the way should work wonders.