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Post by runningdog on Sept 30, 2017 18:51:31 GMT -5
This is my new boy Angus, who's been with me about a month now. He's probably about 2 (ish) and was found straying, picked up by someone, kept in a small hutch for a while then rescued by someone else who took the time to get rid of his parasites, switch him onto a 100% raw diet and find him a permanent home (me). He's basically a healthy little soul, but he does have one bad habit.
He bites.
I was told he was a fear biter before I took him on so it's not a problem (though it is a serious pain when he does it!) but as I've got to know him better I'm not convinced he's a fear biter. He seems quite calm and lucid, he's not cornered or anything. Quite literally, he'll walk quietly across the kitchen floor just so he can take a chunk out of your ankle. One moment he'll be lying quietly on your arm or even licking you, and the next he's trying to get fangs to meet bone. He's improving with a lot of consistent handling - always praise and stroke while he's nice, a firm 'no!' and a scruff to detach him and then straight on the floor and ignore for a couple of minutes before pretending nothing happened again - but it's going to take a good while yet, I think, before he accepts that raw human is not part of a raw meat diet!
Anyway, since he bites I can't leave him with my family to look after, like the rest of the ferrets, when I go away on a trip at the end of next month - so he's coming with me. (I don't blame anyone not wanting to handle a biting ferret and it's unfair to ask it of them! I volunteered to have him; they didn't.) He's learning to walk on a lead, he's happy in a carrier, I've sorted his diet for the trip (found a local zoo in the area we're going where I can buy frozen chicks - the rest I can take fresh and freeze on arrival, or buy in any butcher's shop. I don't think I can keep anything reliably frozen as I drive from north-east Scotland to Exmoor in the south-west of the UK, though!) I thought it'd probably be a good idea, since we'll be out in public, to make sure nobody sees the cute furry and tries to stroke him, so I bought him a hoodie with a warning on the back (it says, 'Danger Use Extreme Caution when Handling').
Can't say I haven't warned people!
It came yesterday and I persuaded him to put it on, which was an interesting wrestling match because he was not impressed. I don't think he's ever worn anything but his own fur coat before I put a harness on him a few weeks ago. Eventually it was on, his legs were all in the right places (at one point he was trying to put his nose out of a leg hole and a leg out of the neck hole!) and he didn't try and bite me in the process, which was brilliant. I put him on the ground to see what he'd do next, and he promptly tried to convince me his front legs couldn't move. He had to toboggan across the floor on his chest, looking pathetic!
I was getting quite concerned about this when he suddenly discovered his legs still worked. It clearly all felt a bit strange and he walked a bit stiffly at first, but he was off. I grabbed the phone and started recording hurriedly while chasing him round the weediest, roughest bits of ground he could find, dragging his beautiful new jacket through the dirt in the process, so it's not a great bit of film - but this is Angus, wearing his hoodie for the first time!
He had the hoodie on for about 5 minutes altogether, and when I took it off him he bit me!
If anyone's around Exmoor at the end of October and sees this little fella stomping about the moor, stop and say hi. Just watch your fingers round the carpet shark!
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Post by Heather on Sept 30, 2017 21:42:59 GMT -5
He's doing remarkably good for only just learning to walk with clothes on lol. Did you really think you wouldn't get a revenge bite for dressing him up? My meekest ferret would have lacerated my fingers for dressing him lol. I would suggest time outs in a sinbin (cat carrier) instead of scruffing. I find it works better. As the sin bin is not a domination move, whereas that's what scruffing is, when you finally reach that Oh, I don't have to bite moment, anyone can handle him. With a domination move the ferret will only respect the person that dominated him, everyone else has to earn that and he will bite them. The sin bin is about learning a behaviour
ciao
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Post by runningdog on Oct 1, 2017 5:18:08 GMT -5
I expected to get bitten putting the torture device on him, let alone taking it off again! Amusingly he tried to put it on himself when he found it in the kitchen later, after I'd dried it out again. I'll keep putting it on him for a couple of minutes a day; he loves his garden walkies so he should soon realise that harness means hoodie means walkies and he'll look forward to them all, and he'll soon get used to the feeling and move more freely again.
When he bites, he really means it. He locks on like a pitbull and will come straight back for another serious bite the moment he's detached unless he's restrained. He'll try several bites at my knuckles and then work round to find a bit he can get his teeth right into if I let him! I've experimented with all the various detach-ferret methods I know - blowing on his nose is not happening again since he let go of my forearm and jumped straight for my nose instead - he didn't get me but that was scary! - squeezing the corners of his jaw gently meant I got a fingertip chomped on as well as my other wrist; pinching gently just above the eyes I detest but I've even tried that; he hated it and attacked me again instantly so that's out. I'm not putting him under the tap or dipping his nose into a bucket of water! It takes far too long to do and he won't connect the dots, I don't think, and I hate threatening to drown a creature anyway. I can instantly grab his scruff when he bites, though, I can do it one-handed while he's locked onto my other hand, it restrains him so he can't just lock on again, and it does make him let go. He really resents it and the one time I tried holding on for the yawn he went wild trying to fight rather than yawning so I only scruff just enough to make him unlatch so I can escape and time-out - ferret on floor, me hurriedly on a chair out of reach, feet off the ground.
I wish I knew what in his past made him this way but I'll never find out, unfortunately. I suspect someone's tried to teach a dominant young ferret not to bite through force, ended up accidentally teaching him to really bite hard instead and then dumped him, which would explain why he was found straying on farmland, already castrated but not chipped, and nobody reported him lost or tried to claim him. He's certainly quite aggressive with the other ferrets and won't accept any kind of non-submissive behaviour from even the biggest, although when they do show submission (as the two young jills will) they're allowed to move around him without being attacked. Angus is 1.2kg - Joker's 1.1kg, Bane's 1.4kg and Loony, the grand old man, is 1.8kg, while the jills are 885g and 890g, so Angus is in the middle size-wise but he won't back down even from Loony and has won several tussles with him. He has trust issues as well, unsurprisingly, after at least four owners in as many months - but he's slowly beginning to relax around me. He doesn't go stiff when I pick him up now and I'm allowed to stroke his neck and sides while he's eating. When I first got him he'd coil around a hand and cling on with all four feet rather than hanging quietly but now when I pick him up his back paws dangle nicely and he's long and relaxed as I lift. I keep my index finger under his chin so he can't get his mouth down to bite, though - that's one of his regular habits, tucking his chin down to bite the hand that's holding him! An unexpected touch on his neck makes him whip round and bite, so I always talk to him before touching, offer the back of my clenched hand for a sniff (flat surface, hard to bite), and work my way towards his neck gradually. I can carry him around lying along my arm and he'll watch the scenery (I know they don't have great eyesight but it looks like he's watching the scenery!) rather than staying stiff and wary or trying to run off, as he did at first. It was such a big day when he had his first dook-and-dance in the kitchen at playtime and in the last week we've passed several milestones; he looks round when I call his name and will come if he's in the kitchen and not busy (but not outside, yet), he's usually at the cage door waiting for me at playtimes and mealtimes and will give my hand a nose-nuzzle greeting without biting when the door opens.
He's already come a long way, but there's a lot of journey still ahead. Given that he is adult nothing's going to be a quick fix but he's young enough to have most of his years ahead of him and we'll get there together, eventually. He's gradually starting to get the idea and several recent bites have been milder - only just breaking skin rather than really going deep. He even let me give him a tummy-rub yesterday and just licked my hand, without the 'now hit bone!' follow-up bite I've come to expect.
Thanks for the suggestion on the sinbin. I've never needed one for my other ferrets - I get the principle but I don't want to use one of the pet carriers in case he sets up a negative association on carriers - at the moment he likes carriers and plays in and out of both the hard and soft ones. He's been to the vet for a distemper jab (I used a drop of salmon oil to distract him at the vital moment and he never noticed the needle going in or tried to bite anyone, even me - that worked when he was chipped, too) and he came with the dogs, the other ferrets and me on a three-day car-camping trip just after I got him (the others were doing a being-handled-by-public session at a livestock show the other side of Scotland, part of a Scottish Ferret Club PR stand - Angus stayed behind the scenes!) so we use carriers a lot.
I have a small wire dog crate from when I last had a terrier pup around that might work, though, and might be even more boring to sit in than a plastic carrier. It's in the quail shed at the moment; I last used it for keeping some jumbo quail out of the way while I cleaned their cages out. I'll give it a wash so it doesn't smell of quail (that would be unkind, putting him in with the smell of quail but no quail!) and see if the wire is close-set enough - he might be able to wriggle out through the bars, I'm not sure. It has a roof hatch as well as a door, which might be better for quickly putting him in for a time-out since he shouldn't associate being popped down through a roof with being put through the side door of a plastic carrier and the soft fabric carrier, which does have a top opening, is very different from a bare wire crate so that shouldn't overlap in his mind either. Do you think the crate will be suitable? Anything I'm missing?
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Post by Sherry on Oct 1, 2017 7:49:11 GMT -5
I found mine never associated the carrier with anything bad. Empty it was the sin bin. Full of soft bedding it is a carrier. Just a head's up though- at first he is likely going to come lunging out of the carrier, and if he bites he MUST go straight back in. Every single time. It honestly won't take long for him to make the association between biting= boredom. And no more than 3 minutes, no matter his behaviour in the sin bin.
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Post by runningdog on Oct 1, 2017 10:57:06 GMT -5
This has been quite a painful hour. I have new bleeding wounds on both hands and both forearms (tbh this is not unusual with Angus in a play session anyway, even through sweatshirt sleeves) and Angus has spent approximately 50 of the last 60 minutes in a dog crate. The other minutes have been either five seconds out of the crate being stroked then bite so straight back in for another 2 and a half minutes, or at the far side of the room refusing to come near me.....
...and the last 5 minutes when he's lain in my arms being cuddled (no, I don't trust him near my face yet!) and quietly exploring around the room, playing with a pencil rubbed the other side of a towel (I don't want him to associate smell-of-human or feel-of-human-in-teeth with fun, even through a towel!) and asking for a pick-up and stroke before heading off for another little run around, but with his mouth firmly closed the whole time.
The first bite wasn't actually a very hard one but a bite's a bite; teeth = timeout. He came out of that livid and went for bone in my arm. He was a very angry ferret for the first half an hour, determined to overcome even if he couldn't figure out what he was fighting. He tried fighting the cage quite a lot but that didn't work, and he couldn't fight me because I wasn't there (sitting watching the stopwatch the other side of the room). After that he was a sad and thoughtful ferret who just lay in the crate staring at me between bites. Now he's being a quiet ferret, having a wash-and-brush-up in one of his nests.
I fully expect him to go right back to the beginning next session, just to check the situation really is what it is, but he shouldn't need nearly so long being locked in the slammer to make the connection.
Time to finish on a good note, give him some salmon oil and pop him back in his cage for a rest and some processing time.
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Post by runningdog on Oct 2, 2017 4:43:00 GMT -5
I'd say he's only spent half this last play-session in the sinbin, and we've had some really nice snuggly cuddles between bites, plus he's spending more time coming to me and asking for attention.
On the down side, he's really putting a lot of effort into the bites at the moment, picking his spot and then biting as hard as he can. Blood every time and matching upper and lower incisor punctures in neat sets.
Onwards (slowly) and upwards (more or less)....
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Post by runningdog on Oct 3, 2017 7:53:58 GMT -5
Only two bites, both relatively mild, this morning, and he came out of the sinbin after the second very quiet and thoughtful, lay on my arm for a few minutes being stroked, then wriggled to go down and bounced round my feet dooking, so I picked up one of the tug-ropes and we had a few minutes of very happy dooking and dancing while he wrestled the rope before he went off exploring again.
Towards the end of the session he got bothered about something. He kept coming to me and climbing up, then wriggling down and making a quick foray off, then back to climb up and look at me meaningfully before getting down again. I couldn’t figure out what was on his mind for a minute, but then he reversed tail-up into a corner and hesitated - and then flapped his tail down again and came back to climb on me again. I carried him to his cage and he immediately reversed into his own potty corner with evident relief.
That’s a first. I’ve not had a ferret *ask* to be taken to the litter tray before. They normally just pick a corner and it’s up to me to provide a litter tray where they want it.
Feels like a major breakthrough today - fingers crossed it lasts!
How long should I keep a sinbin standing ready just in case, after he stops biting regularly? Is he likely to have the occasional lapse that needs a reminder? Or do they just flick a mental switch and that’s that? It certainly feels like he’s made much, much faster progress with the sinbin than without - thanks very much for the advice on that, Heather and Sherry! Still a way to go but I’m seriously impressed with how fast he’s come on in the past two days.
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Post by crazylady on Oct 3, 2017 12:14:48 GMT -5
Hi I would always have some kind of sin bin to hand just in case lol you are coming on in leaps and bounds with him have you tried rewarding him with a chunk of meat when he is good and does not bite ? I used this method with a nasty biter it was bite I said no loudly and placed them in a cage if they let me pick them up with out biting I stuck a cube of meat in the there mouth ( not as crazy as it seems when the mouth is full no ferret will risk loosing a chunk of meat to bite lol) mine soon figured out bite bad tempered woman who shouts means no treat no biting we get extra meat and talked to like a baby lol you are doing fine its all about being patient he will learn to trust you and once you have his trust you will have a friend for life I know your body wont enjoy the teeth marks but its all part of owing a ferret lol take care bye for now Bev
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Post by runningdog on Oct 3, 2017 14:52:46 GMT -5
He’s a thinker is Angus. He came in again this afternoon for a while and didn’t touch my hands. He tried for my arms a few times and then left them alone and went for my feet instead! He’s spending a lot more time voluntarily coming to me and climbing about on me, though, rather than lurking at the far side of the room and me having to go find him to get some interaction, and he’s allowed several tummy-rubs without objecting and played some nice dooking games with tug-ropes. I’ve also been able to see some of his bites coming and distract him with a quickly-presented toy to wrestle, for the sake of my skin, and also in the hope he gets the idea that biting toys is encouraged, if he wants to bite something. Biting’s a normal thing for ferrets, I’m not expecting him to stop biting everything.... just humans! I’ll try him with the scraps of food idea. It works to stop them biting each other very well, too; I carried my big boy Loony down the garden the other night hanging over my forearm right next to his best pest, little Ivy, but since both had a chunk of rabbit in their mouths at the time, Ivy didn’t even try to nip his scruff for a change. She’s a minx! She sneaks up on him when he’s busy and nips his scruff or whiskers - or even grabs his ear and pulls him out of the food dish to get the best bits herself. She’s 6 months old and weighs 885g, he’s 5 years and weighs 1.8kg.... poor old man! I currently look like I lost an all-in wrestling bout with a hedgehog, particularly since Ivy and Holly, my gorgeous babies, have discovered my ears today and experimentally nipped those to see if they were allowed. At least they were just tiny nips and they stopped when I said no, being well-brought-up little darlings! It’ll all heal in a few days.
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Post by runningdog on Oct 4, 2017 5:19:02 GMT -5
I can see it’s going to be a challenge to think faster than Angus. All ferrets are quick and bright, but this fella’s a step ahead of me at the moment! Today’s progress: Hands are (mostly) off the menu. I’ve been licked several times this morning and twice I caught him opening his mouth for the bite then rethinking it and closing his mouth again before giving me a quick ‘oops!’ lick and making off. Feet are (mostly) off the menu. Socks are not. He’s been examining my feet by rubbing his chin along until he finds loose sock not containing human - and then he grabs it for a tug-game. I’m letting him do this, since he is being careful about it and showing he knows that human is not grabbable. He’s spent a lot of time today trying to climb up to my face and head. Thank goodness for hoodies with big hoods! I do not trust him near my face, neck and ears! I tried giving him a little treat as I got him out of the sinbin. This has backfired. I did it twice and each time he ate the treat and sniffed my fingers for more, then went off to explore a bit. The third time he ate the treat, then climbed straight back into the sinbin and looked expectant. When my fingers failed to contain a treat as I lifted him out again he bit me and was extremely cross about going straight back in the slammer. I think in his little furry mind, he was just explaining he expected a treat and I was being slack not providing it, so he didn’t deserve to do time for my failure. I feel like a heel. He’s also discovered my singing bowl collection and it’s amusing watching him twang a bowl with his claws, then stand listening to the sound. It was accidental the first couple of times, but then it turned deliberate. I don’t think I’ve had a musical ferret before! The dogs are getting used to coming in and finding their toys have moved around and now smell of ferret.
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Post by Sherry on Oct 4, 2017 9:40:46 GMT -5
He is coming along SO fast! And yes I made the same mistake about the treats before lol. Willow quickly associated bite = sinbin= treat!
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Post by runningdog on Oct 5, 2017 6:21:14 GMT -5
Two tiny little nips this morning, and that was all! He helped tidy up a room (for his benefit, his new indoor cage is going in the space we cleared in a week or so!) and he helped me put the washing away, very neatly sorting all my clean socks into a heap under the bed. This is what I class as normal, well-adjusted ferret behaviour! He followed me about the place, he climbed up me regularly and spent time sitting on my shoulders (I’m still wearing a good thick hoodie - one of those little nips was the back of my neck when I wasn’t quite quick enough getting the hood up!) and he did a proper upside-down tummy-rub with all his paws grabbing my hand and a ferret laugh - without using his teeth! It really feels like he’s connecting with me properly now, instead of just tolerating me at best. I can reach down and tickle his sides when he’s round my feet without him jumping and going tense; I was even allowed to put my hand into his hammock this morning to tickle him in bed without him objecting. There will still be days when he goes backwards and days when his issues get in his way but it’s so good to feel that, after all he’s been through, he’s starting to believe there really is a light at the end of the tunnel.
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Post by runningdog on Oct 5, 2017 14:21:19 GMT -5
Poor wee Angus, he’s had a rough evening. I brought him in with the other 5 tonight, continuing the process of slowly trying to persuade them all to tolerate each other, but Loony, Joker and Bane got together and attacked him tag-team and en masse. He fought them off with a lot of screaming (it was so loud Holly, on the far side of the kitchen, dropped a panic-poop in her hurry to find cover) but then flopped on the floor and looked so sad and depressed, and his scruff’s raw and bleeding in a couple of spots. When I spoke to him and offered a hand, he climbed up my arm and just lay in my lap for a bit, very sorrowful.
I managed to cheer him up after a few minutes with some salmon oil and a lot of gentle brushing, stroking and talking to him, but I think I’ll just have to accept that he’s not going to join the business - the other boys don’t accept him and he doesn’t accept them. He’s just about ok with the girls, but they’re doing great with the other boys and I don’t want to break up a successful business to form one where they marginally tolerate each other at best.
Maybe next spring I can find him a kit he’ll bond with, or maybe he’s just going to be a loner-ferret. He needs more of my time than the others anyway and he’ll be moving into a new indoor cage in about ten days;maybe he’ll become best-buddies with the whippets instead. They get on fine through wire, Angus seems to have no issues with dogs and the whippets were brought up with ferrets and like them, but it’ll be a good while before I have the confidence to let Angus meet a whippet nose-to-nose without a barrier.
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Post by LindaM on Oct 5, 2017 16:34:21 GMT -5
Hmm, things are a wee bit different over there, I am sure. Don't you guys use ferrets like working ferrets up in Scotland? And let the fuzzards hunt alongside dogs?
Most of us will not let dogs and ferrets be friends, know of each other's existence sure, but not really let them buddy-buddy. Simply because of the danger involved, even with supervision. There's been horror stories of how a split second of not enough time to intervene has cost the life of a ferret, or bad damage to a dog. Ferrets, as you know, can be real stinkers and tease the dogs until someone snaps a bit, they may not mean to, but it can end up fatal for the ferret. Or a fuzzy might just decide to take a chunk out of someone else's neck. So just be careful in that kind of territory, I am sure you will though.
Also, poor Angus. He may be a tough boy, but nobody deserves such an assault, I'm sure his ego is as bruised as he is. Poor wee lad. Mayhaps he'll be a loner, or end up quite bonded to you instead as his buddy.
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Post by unclejoe on Oct 5, 2017 17:29:37 GMT -5
I've had a couple dogs that I trusted around the ferrets one was a huge chocolate lab mix the other was a Shih Tzu Shih Tzu was too dumb to care and Roscoe the lab was just a gentle giant he actually enjoyed playing with the ferret we also had a Yorky that we could never trust around thembecause he played rough. That said Darlene had a Rottweiler that she dearly loved in the blink of an eye she killed her first ferret just out of an instinctive reaction after they had lived together for a few months something to think about
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