Laura previously wrote a post on how to name ferrets. Well I recently had a similar experience. How do you really name a ferret. Like Laura said, names like Spaz, Trouble, Snowy, etc. are all commonly used names. We also try to be creative with names. I try to name ferrets based on their personality, but sometimes that can be hard. I do research online, check what words mean in other languages, consult a baby name book. All work well, but it still can be tricky. I recently got in two ferrets that had profane names, that I will not post on here. So since those names are not appropriate for ferrets, or anything for that matter, what do we name them? I put a lot of thought into this one, and I ended up naming them Rob and Amber. They have attitude, are aggressive, and are always out to win, so I named them after one of my favorite reality duos of all time, Rob and Amber off of Survivor and The Amazing Race.

So how did these two ferrets end up at QCFR? Well it is a long, interesting, and disturbing story. I am sharing this story with everyone so that people can be aware that things like this do happen in the world and even in our area.

These ferrets were brought to us by a couple that had the ferrets in their care for several days. The ferrets belonged to their son, who was on drugs. He abandoned the ferrets at their house and they decided that it was in the ferret’s best interest if they surrendered them to us. I knew ahead of time that these ferrets hadn’t been handled much and that they had a biting problem. The ferrets were originally purchased from a petstore around 6 months ago and were bred by Real Canadian Ferrets. So like everyone always says, these two are much larger than your typical Marshall’s ferret.

The day he got the ferrets, they bite him. Not unusual, young ferrets are known to be nippy, especially ones fresh from the petstore. Well for some reason he snapped, he beat them quite badly, apparently badly enough to make them bleed. If that wasn’t already bad enough, he threw the ferrets in their cage, and set the cage outside. This would have been in October or November, so the weather was freezing cold with occasional rain and snow. So these two ferrets were caged outside all winter long. We did have days where the temperature was -10 degrees or lower. During these 6 months of being caged outside, they were never handled at all. Food was dumped into the top of the cage and of course it would scatter everywhere. They were fed a diet of rabbit food and very low quality ferret food. At least recently the food they were being fed was rancid and starting to mold at the bottom of the bag. The ferrets themselves were horrid looking. Very dirty fur, incredibly long nails, and a very bad odor. You have to wonder how people can let things get that bad.
The cage they were housed in was absolutely disgusting. The plastic base on the cage was about 6″ deep and since it was never cleaned in 6 months, you can see where the feces built up and started overflowing out of the base. The shelves were covered with blood stains, feces, rotten food, hair. The smell of the base was so overpowering that it was turned over to me tied in a garbage bag. When I opened the bag, I almost fell over because the smell was horrid. The ferrets had the original hammock that came in the cage and that was it. No other bedding at all. As you can imagine, the hammock was filthy and trashed. When they were outside, they were out in the open as well, so no protection from the elements. We are guessing that the blood stains on the shelves were caused by their feet getting wet and cracking in the cold.

When these ferrets were brought to me, they were in a fabric carrier in the back of a covered truck. The couple was so afraid of the ferrets that they didn’t feel safe having them in the truck with them. They felt that the ferrets would attack them if they happened to rip out of the carrier. The man recommended that I wear leather gloves to transfer them to a hard carrier. Well I reached in and transported them to a hard carrier and ended up with several puncture wounds on my hands.

The family of the guy that originally owned the ferrets continually tried to convince him to get rid of the ferrets previously but he refused. The family was afraid of him. Luckily for the ferrets, he abandoned them at his parents house and told them to do whatever they wanted with them. So now I have these two ferrets that are incredibly aggressive. They are the most aggressive ferrets I have ever seen. The only hands they have ever known beat them, so they instinctively bite. They fear humans and you can tell that they are emotionally scarred from their past.

Some people would say these ferrets are a hopeless case and can’t be reformed. There is no such thing as a hopeless ferret. All ferrets can become loving pets, it just takes time, and in this particular case, time and lots of bandages. Since these ferrets have been in our care for over a week now, we have made some progress with them. We managed to clip their nails and bathe them without any violent outbursts.

In order to “domesticate” them so they can be around humans, I sit in the room with them when they have their playtime. They are well behaved most of the time, they do go beserk occasionally and bite, but we are in a no punishment stage right now. It’s the let them bite and don’t do anything to them stage. It may sound weird, but by doing this it shows them that they don’t need to worry about being smacked, abused, or scruffed when they do that. Eventually they will figure out that I won’t hurt them if they bite me. At that point in time, if they nip, I will do the “scruff and drag” approach. They won’t make a complete turnaround in days or weeks, but over a period of several months, they should have fairly normal ferret behavior. Of course the will always have the emotional scars of their past and will probably always be a bit untrusting and nippy at times. But who can blame them. If I were in the same situation, I’d probably bite people too. So progress is being made.

I often ask myself when I see or hear of situations like this, “how can people be so cruel?” It is something that always baffles me. But the ferrets are out of that situation and are very happy to be in a clean cage in a warm house. They also are enjoying their soft fleece bedding. They’re living the high life now!!!

So if you ever know of any animals living in situations like this, please tell someone. It’s not fair for the animals.

~Cathy: Quad City Ferret Rescue