Sporadic Biter

[Malt 379]

Rob, you can but keep trying mate, but I think you yourself know there may well come a point when you realise that the effort you're putting in trying to get this ferret to change its behaviour is too much. A lot of people these days seem to be of the opinion that any ferret can be hand tamed, and maybe in a lot of the cases they're right, given enough time and effort, but ferrets have been bred to work with humans for centuries, so any more than basic nip training as a kit shouldn't be needed IMO. There are plenty of good working ferrets out there from stable stock if you look for them. It's no good working with a ferret you can't trust IMO..

[Papa g 14]

 

Anyone ever had this, cos I haven't.....

 

A couple of months ago I put a thread up about my hob, at the time he was only 7 months old and to cut a long story short, I took him out for the first time, he tried to run off, I had to run after him, dog got excited, ferret got scared and bit my hand.

 

Well since then I've not taken him out, I decided to leave him until next season to mature a bit and see how he goes then. Simply because I'm not convinced he's not going to either run off, or go down a burrow and refuse to come out. So he's been exercised in the yard for a couple of hours a day. He's soft but very energetic, very full on. Anyway, today I did the usual and let the jills out for a couple of hours and then let him out for a bit, went to put him in a minute ago and he was stood in some tyres I've put out for them to climb on, I called him and he ran at me and totally out of the blue grabbed my finger and shook....and it wasn't a playful grab, the f****r meant it! It wasn't even like a put my hand to him and he grabbed it, he actually ran to grab it.

 

It's proper done my head in, what on earth is going through his head? I've had ferrets before that have been a bit intense and they've calmed down loads when worked, I'm going to take him out to see how he gets on, if that doesn't work I don't really know what to do. Seriously can't be arsed with a ferret, or any other animal for that matter, where you can't be 100% sure it's not going to grab hold of you just out of the blue!

 

Suggestions anyone? he's around 9 or 10 months old now.

I have not been on the forum for long but I think I may be able to help. His problem may be down to association, the first time out and your dog probably scared him, you chased him and he bit you! I think that unless you can change his mindset when it comes to his relationship with you, you may always have this unpredictability. I would reccomend very regular handling and to feed him treats by hand during the handling and also regular positive interaction with your dog, the one that got excited. When he bit you for the second time was your dog around, had you been handling your dog? He may associate the smell, sound or sight of your dog with that moment of fear when he was 7 months old so I would introduce your dog, through scent and sight throughout the handling sessions. An excited dog to a young ferret could seem like an angry giant! You never know, he could turn out to be the best ferret you ever had, i think that we can sometimes underestimate the value of our working relationships with ferrets; could be hard work but worth it I reckon!

makes good sense my friend!