Good grief. Had your informant ever met a ferret? Did they also assure ye that ferrets bite savagely? That their jaws " Lock " when they do bite? That they thrive on bread and milk? That they like to live in the dark? That they need to be muzzled to stop them killing rabbits?
Ferrets are among the most fastidiously clean creatures man has ever domesticated. Give one a run a hundred foot long and they'll make their nest at one end and walk that full hundred feet to relieve themselves. Keeping their latrine as far from themselves as they possibly can.
" Smell like hell " ? Ferrets, i