From:
Sukie Crandall
Date: 2002-05-07 16:44:00 UTC
Subject: Re: Itchy Skin
I recently sent this to someone else with a blind ferret. It may be
useful for you.
>As you have noticed most ferrets aren't even slowed down by
>blindness, so it can even be hard to notice that one is blind. Sight
>is not terribly important to them compared to other senses.
>
>A few aren't so fortunate, or perhaps a room gets rearranged, or the
>family moves and that causes navigation difficulties. If the ferret
>is very active that ferret might crash into things more than usual
>during active romping.
>
>What you do then is you take safe scents and simply dot them on
>obstacles at ferret height. Those scents alert the ferret that
>something is dead ahead and the critter slows down. (Some people
>label bedding with a set scent and then put that around to be safe
>places to crash and to get ferrets to not go to the bathroom in
>those spots.)
>
>To help with navigation you can use different scents in different
>rooms, and even different scents for two sides of a room.
>
>Using our place as an example. The living room might have lemon and
>rose, the dining nook may have peach, the kitchen lime and orange,
>the hall spearmint, the bedroom cinnamon and vanilla, and the ferret
>room peppermint (Ashling's absolute favorite) and apple. The
>bathrooms tend toward violet (since it also confuses senses of
>smell) and wintergreen. The scents not only give her an idea of
>where obstacles are but they also tell her where she is in the
>house, even if she takes a nap somewhere.
>
>We are aware of the scents for a few days but the ferrets seem to
>know they are there for as long as two weeks after application.
>
>That help?