Ferret Taming Part 1 – The basics

The ferret is an animal that lives in a pack, he is bound with a hierarchy principle. He hates being submitted. It’s impossible to tame a ferret with punishment, he will understand that you are punishing him and he will listen to you less. It’s important to establish a confidence bond with your ferret. He has to see you as his parent, friend or protector, not as his superior. In this guide, you will learn how to create a confidence bond with your ferret and how to use this bond to tame it.

Confidence bond

In contrary to the cat or the dog, the ferret is a relatively new pet. It is not naturally used to humans, it will take more time to establish a confidence bond with a ferret than with a cat or a dog. But, it’s not impossible !

Some tips :
– Never be too rough with him
– Take him on you when he sleeps and pet him until he wakes up
– Let him move a lot
– Feed him treats by hand (normal ferret food works too)
– Sit on the floor and let it come to you by itself

Keep in mind that every ferret has its own personality and that you will find the right tricks by trying them.

Biting

A ferret will rarely bites with the intention of hurting you, it’s simply their way of playing with you. Their skin is thicker than ours and that’s why it sometimes hurt when they bite. The most efficient way to teach a ferret how to bite with the right force is to give him treats when he bites properly. During playtime, if he bites too hard, you can pick him up by the neck skin, tell it no firmly, put it in a corner and ignore it for 10 min. If your ferret tries to bite you when you try to pick him up, NEVER remove your hand. If you do, it will show him that you are scared and he will continue. If you pick him up with confidence, he will understand that you are not scared of him. For the most stubborn ferrets, you can put your finger in his throat. I do not encourage this technique, because your ferret will stop biting you even when you play with him.

Good to know: If your ferret bites you and does not let go, stay calm and put its face in water. If you cannot reach him because he is hidden behind something, relax your hand and he will eventually let go. 🙂

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Poopoo time  

The ferret is a naturally clean animal. It’s easy to teach him how to be clean, it only takes patience. To most important thing to do is to is to reward your ferret with a treat when he goes is his litter to relieve himself. If you have a new ferret in you household, it is important to let it stay in the cage for the first days so that it can understand where his litter is. It will incredibly facilitate the process, since the ferret likes to relieve itself at the same place, he will instinctively return to his litter to poopoo. We did not do it, and it took us around 6/8 months before they even began to understand. Since the ferret is a clean animal, its litter must be clean too ! It’s important that you clean its litter at an interval of max two days (depends on how many ferrets you have, of course), if not, he will refuse to go and he will sh*t everywhere. The only way to punish a ferret for relieving himself on the floor is by picking him up by the neck skin and telling him firmly ‘’NO’’ (It’s really not as efficient as positive reinforcement, but at least he will understand that you don’t like it when he does that). If your ferret refuses to go in his litter, you can put other litters in your house to help him.       

Petting

I heard from you guys that this is a common problem and we will try our best to help you with it. First of all, your ferret needs to feel safe in your arms. This bring us back to the bond of confidence. You also have to let your ferret move enough for him to be tired, if not he won’t want to stay in your arms, not because he doesn’t love you, but because he is curious and full of energy ! The first step is to let him get himself worn out. After that, you can pick him up when he is tired or sleeping. You can then pet him until he wakes up. At the beginning, he will want to go away as soon as he wakes up. You can try to keep him on you, but not more than one minute, because he will associate waking up on you with being restrained. The best way to keep him on you is by giving him a treat when he wakes up so that he associates waking up on you with positive feelings. Keep doing that until he feels safe on you !

Personal experience

We have had our share of trouble while trying to tame Coconut and Bambou, because we were not using the right techniques. We started by punishing them, right by the start we started on the wrong foot. If you did the same, don’t get discouraged, you can always come back from it. You have to keep in mind that some behaviours that come from their natural habits are sometimes incorrectible. Per example, Bambou likes to open doors, because he is curious to know what is inside of them. Since you can’t really punish a ferret, it is impossible for us to make him understand. Having a ferret comes with those disadvantages, you have to get used to it !

To sum up, the ferret is not a hard animal to tame, you only need to know how to do it. The only quality needed is patience, Arm yourself with it and you will succeed !

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Mathieu, Karina, Bambou & Coconut
Dook dook