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.. Raven especially has this down to a science. She climbs the big cage in the ferret room when she wants attention. We can see her from our living room / computer area as she sticks her little face out as far as she can to peek around the corner at us. Of course, being the suckers we are, we take turns going into the ferret room to remove her from the top of the cage and spend some time with her, either playing or snuggling. Bear uses this skill to make mostly failed escape attempts... .. All six ferrets have at one time or another have tried this ... Sometimes they use their water dish, which is big enough for at least one ferret to climb into. We also use the same plastic container for the pebble box for a swimming pool of sorts... Ferrets naturally love to dig. They will dig in anything that is diggable, but seem to prefer dirt. We took an old cat litter box and filled it about half way with organic potting soil and a few rocks from outside. Place your ferret on their back on the kitchen floor or other linoleum, or smooth, surface (or let them stay upright, as the linoleum tile does not allow for ferret feet traction!) and GENTLY push said fuzzy so they slide at least a foot or two. Sometimes our ferrets get so riled at this they start dooking wildly, weezil war dance like crazy, and usually end up bashing into a ferrety or feline sibling. Sometimes they will come war dancing and dooking back for more while other times said ferret walks away like nothing just happened. Two or more ferrets (or cats, if you are really brave) can be 'bowled' at the same time! CLOTHING - RELATED GAMES All of our ferrets love getting into our shoes, literally. They will try to crawl into, scratch at the sides and bottom of, and drag around any of our shoes they find.Clothing Tunnels (aka Human Exploration) : Whether we are wearing them or not, articles of clothing are a favorite ferretway. Legs and arms provide the tunnels in and out of the garments.... .. This is strictly a Blitz game. He is often seen running down the hall, from the bedroom to the living room, with black lacy bra in his mouth heading right for the hidey - hole under the couch. For a photo catching him in the action, see the Ferret Chronicles page. This ferret game is a combination of the Magic Carpet Ride, Clothing Tunnels, and Comforter Castle, using a bathrobe... This happens most often when I am in the ferret room cleaning out the litter pans. I stand inside the room balancing the pan on the waist - high wooden gate that separates the ferret room from the kitchen while scooping into the trash can on the other side... suddenly, I feel a small monster climbing up my pant leg! It's a ferret - monster! FUN WITH OTHERS
All six of our ferrets LOVE our two cats: Pepper and Dusty, eight year old sisters. Bandit, Bear, and Blitz especially are smitten with them and will gaze at them with half - lidded eyes glazed with love and affection. It is a sight to behold! However, they also enjoy getting as close to the cats as possible, even sticking their noses as far into kitty fur as allowed. Of course, they all eventually are left pining when the cats take off or get whacked, sometimes repeatedly and harder than I feel comfortable with. However, the ferrets have to learn where the line is and our kitties have no problem reminding them ...Although I have experienced this ferret game often, I always forget about it when I am considering games ferrets play. That is probably because as a female human, I am hard-wired to forget extreme pain, resulting from oxytocin release in response to physical traumas like giving birth and other horrors... Anyway ... This game is played by at least one ferret and at least one human, although the number of participants may vary with equal effectiveness. The ferret somehow hides in a place that is not observable to the human, creating the illusion that said ferret has either escaped, gotten themselves stuck somewhere inaccessible, or hurt badly. Human participant(s) begin this game in a normal frame of mind and is usually searching for all the ferrets to put them back in their room after a supervised house romp. Unable to locate at least one ferret, the human begins using all known methods of ferret retrieval, such as squeaking the special 'here's a treat' squeak toy and calling out the ferret's name. If no scratching, scrabbling, or other indication of movement noises are heard, the search continues for a while, until all known places of ferret hiding preferences have been thoroughly checked at least three times. At this point, most ferrets will show themselves or otherwise give up their position via noise, but in rare cases, no ferret is seen or heard ... The next stage is Panic: In our home this begins after several minutes of frantic calling out of missing ferrets name combined with pleading to come out and repetitively saying, 'This is NOT funny anymore!' Husband becomes visibly worried almost simultaneously with wife beginning to tear up and think the worst. At this point, by the time the missing ferret emerges mysteriously from unknown hiding place with a perplexed expression [seeming to say, 'What's all the fuss about?'] husband is clearly concerned and wife (me) is overcome with tears of gratitude for seeing missing fuzzy alive and well..... When we let the ferrets wander around the house, they enjoy collecting any and all cat toys they find along the way. Since our two kitties are just as spoiled as our ferrets, this means an awful lot of collecting going on!
Blitz is notorious for spending uninterrupted minutes transporting dry cat food, piece by piece, from the cat dishes to various places under the couch. Does he think he will run out? Is he storing up for some sort of planned hide out?
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