First-Time Ferret Owners
Whiskey was such a spoiled ferret! Our family fell in love with him so quickly, and he became such an important member of our family. But as first-time ferret owners, we sure did a lot of things wrong. Looking back, I'm embarrassed to write even half of the things that we did wrong! Since I worked for a pet store, I erroneously believed that what I was told there was the right way to raise a ferret. Back in 1988, there wasn't the wealth of information out there that there is now about ferrets. Today, there are hundreds of websites and mailing lists about ferrets. But back then, there wasn't a whole lot. There weren't even any vets that I knew of that were good with ferrets. The manager at the pet store told me that I should feed Whiskey Science Diet kitten food mixed with Jespy. Jespy was this disgusting meat-like substance, it was actually ground beef with tripe (fish) that was frozen. We sold it at the pet store. We only fed Whiskey twice a day - again - we were told this was what to do! We'd keep a log of this frozen Jespy in the fridge to thaw, and at feeding time he got a big pile of it, we'd microwave it till it was warm, mix in some Science Diet, and cover it with Linatone. Back then, there was no Ferretone - Linatone is the same stuff, just labelled for cats. God, his food smelled awful, but he liked it. Well, he liked the beef, anyway. He had this awful habit of sucking the meat off of the Science Diet pellets, and then he spit the pellets out. After about a year, we stopped putting the Science Diet in. For the rest of his life, he ate nothing but this frozen Jespy. Looking back now, I cringe!
Here's another big boo-boo that we did with Whiskey. Whiskey LOVED to be outside. In warmer months, beginning in early spring through late fall, we took him outside as often as we could. Whether mom was gardening or dad was out hitting golf balls into the woods, we took Whiskey outside to enjoy his time out. Our house borders miles upon miles of woods. Whiskey loved to go for walks in the woods. We never used a leash (BAD! BAD!) but we always kept him as close as possible. One day, Whiskey discovered a hole in the ground made by some critter. It was right by this big tree, and he found it and POOF - he was gone. Down the hole. I freaked out, I was so scared he was going to find some monster animal down there and I'd never see him again! Whiskey was trained to come to the sound of a particular squeaky toy that we owned (that was one thing we did RIGHT). So I grabbed the toy and squeaked it... and pop! Out his head came! A little dirty, but he survived his hole just fine :) But that started a trend that I can't believe looking back that we allowed. That hole became Whiskey's domain. Over time, as we realized that Whiskey never really wandered off, just hung out outside near us, we let him outside more often. We were always out there with him, but we didn't watch him as much as we should have. Whenever he was done running and wanted to go to sleep, he'd go down into that hole, and that's where he slept. When it was time for us to go in the house, we'd grab his squeaky toy, squeak it, and he'd come running out of his hole! (I can just hear the groans of so many people reading this!)
Despite the fact that we were too liberal in letting him roam our property, we never let Whiskey out when we weren't out with him. But one