From:
"Roger Vaughn"
Date: 2003-02-01 16:37:53 UTC
Subject: Elavil for ferrets?
To: <ferrethealth@smartgroups.com>
Message-ID: <50323.192.168.132.35.1044117473.squirrel@mail.seaconinc.com>
Has anyone heard of using Elavil (amitriptyline) with ferrets?
I ask because we have a ferret, Lancelot, who is obsessed with biting
me. Literally obsessed. Nearly every waking minute of his day, he is
trying to bite my hands and feet. None of the deterents seem to help.
Bitter Apple just makes him skip the licking step and go straight to
the biting. Scruffing or even pushing him away just makes him mad so
that he bites harder. Timeouts are just plain ineffective.
I have taken to wearing shoes all the time, but now he tries to get in
my pants leg to bite my ankles or tries to climb my legs and desk
chair to get to my hands so he can bite them. If I try to pick him up
or pet him - or just get my hands anywhere near him - he is biting
them. This goes on all day long. He doesn't do this to my
girlfriend, only to me. He doesn't break the skin, but he tries to
get a big mouthful of bone in every bite, and that *hurts*. These are
not the playful nips we sometimes get from our others.
When we first adopted Lance last year, he was an angel. After a few
months, though, he started attacking our youngest, Spanky, whom he had
previously gotten along fine with. Now he is confined to my home
office and takes out his aggression on me instead. He will still
attack Spanky if let out into the house. (He also attacks our three
newest additions, but that may be a different cause.) Those attacks
aren't
pretty - again, there is no blood shed, but he hunts Spanky down,
grabs *very* aggressively (very different from play), and shakes him
violently. He accepts everybody but those four, though he doesn't
seem to know how to play with them.
He doesn't appear to be distrustful or even "mean", he's just obsessed
with this biting.
In November Lance had a bilateral adrenalectomy, and was found to have
one adenoma and one carcinoma. I had hoped that the surgery would
improve his behavior, but so far no change. His fur has grown back in
nicely, but we're still waiting for the tail to fill back in. (To be
clear, he had the surgery because he needed it, not because of the
biting. We finally discovered in November that he had adrenal tumors,
so he had the surgery immediately afterward.)
So, I wondered if perhaps an antidepressant or anti-anxiety med might
calm him a little and let him interact with us (and the other ferrets)
normally.
Thanks for any suggestions.
roger & the wolverine wannabees - some more successful than others
missing bear