Ferret hates new people, bites faces

[infernalancestry]

Hey guys, oddly specific question here - and sorry if it's not quite the right section of the site, seemed the closest since it's a behavioural issue.

One of my ferrets, Fax, seems to have some kind of fixation with biting new people on the face. He acts totally normal and friendly around new people until he has an opportunity to reach their face and will immediately go for them.

I of course warn every new person I bring over to NOT lift him up to their face or let him near their face at all, but no one ever seems to take it seriously and they take him climbing their chest as him being friendly despite both the warnings and me actively saying "no don't let him do that" as it happens.

He doesn't seem afraid at all, no hiding or bottle brush tail, he walks right up to them himself, and he doesn't do this to me or people I have over regularly. He actively attempts to get up to their face to bite them, never goes for any other part of the body for some reason, and he bites HARD. It's like he sees a chin or a nose and a switch flips inside him and he just NEEDS to latch on for some reason 😭

I'm guessing this is a dominance issue?
I'm unsure how to correct the behaviour, I can't just let a bunch of people get bitten for the sake of giving him time outs to teach him 😅
I want him to meet new people, I want him to be better about it, but anyone who isn't experienced with more dominant animals don't take him seriously.. Maybe because he's smaller than something like a dog and so that comes off as non threatening to them.

Is there some kind of training I can do with him to help ease this behaviour out of him? Or do I just need to scare the h*ll out of my guests by telling them how dangerous a dominant ferret can be lol


TLDR: dominant ferret bites guest's faces, do I need to train my ferret or my guests?

[Corvidophile]

While training the ferret not to bite faces is good, and should be a goal, finding an effective way to tell your guests of the danger is the faster solved issue since you speak the same language and they’re more able to listen. It’ll be different for the personality of each person. Some people will probably even take it as a dare because he’s small and cute and what harm could he do? Tell them how they can crunch through bones. Tell them ferret teeth are made for ripping flesh off carcasses.

Where do you live, are rabies shots mandatory and has he had his annually? Somebody who gets offended or hurt enough by him could theoretically report the injury to the police and have your ferret either confiscated or put to death if he isn’t rabies vaccinated and the area mandates it. It’s serious.

As for training the ferret… I don’t know! It sounds like he might be doing it for his own amusement out of hurting people in surprise and watching their reactions. That’s why he doesn’t do it to you, he likes you. You should put him in a time out bin whenever it happens, but hopefully you can prevent it in the future enough that it doesn’t happen again. Nobody wants to get a new nose piercing they weren’t planning on. I’m not sure what bacteria are in a ferret’s mouth that could cause infection, either. Be sure to keep some antibacterial wound wash in your place, like chlorhexidine, rubbing alcohol or iodine.

[unclejoe]

1) DON'T let new people handle him until he's trained. 2) It might be a good Idea to have them sign a waiver of liability if they insist and you can't say no. Personally, that ferret would be in the cage whenever I had guests. For your protection, the ferret's and your guests'.  No exceptions.

[Sherry Stone]

Honestly, unless you have a very trusted friend who won't mind being bitten while training, I'd not let anyone else handle him. If anyone reports it at a very minimum depending on where you are, he will be under strict cage quarantine where even YOU aren't allowed to handle him. At worst he will be euthanized and tested for rabies.