My new viscious critter!
Hey you guys! I haven't been here in a while, so I thought I'd at least take the time to tell you about this new hellian I brought home. I set out the other day to buy a Chinchilla. I found a beautiful one in St. Augustine for 130.00 with a cage! I did all my research, headed up there the next day, and he was already sold. So I wound up with a ferret instead. He was cool until I let him down to play in the room. That little thing is crazy! It's only 8 weeks old, so it hasn't learned not to bite yet. Now nipping is one thing, but this little fuzzbutt freakin' lockjawed my finger through the cage and shook like a pitbull! By the time I got the cage door open my finger was ripped to shreds, even my fingernail is torn from his teeth. At that point I dug into some ferret information to find out disciplinary and teaching methods, and WHY he was doing this. I had only researched chinchillas before I left because I wasn't expecting to get a ferret. I have had one before when I was like, 8, but it was a year old and had already been trained not to even nip. Petco had just recieved them from the breeder, so I called the manager and informed him of this unsocialized unusually aggressive behavior, and I gave him a piece of my mind about not warning me that he needed to be trained and that he "bit," keeping in mind that nipping is totally different. One of the other ferrets in the enclosure was 10 times more aggressive than this one is even now. I picked the one I have because he was the calmest at the store. I can't even imagine how crazy the other one will be after leaving with someone. i believe that the breeder did not take any time at all to interact with them, he is probably scared because of the new enviroment, and he is a male. They have that "alpha" male "beta" male mentality so when he was interacting with other ferrets he was probably used to being boss. He is being real stubborn about breaking that. I scruff him after he bites, hiss at him sometimes even, put him in a time out box, and when he comes out he'll still be biting trying to be bad! Apparently that is typical behavior for males coming out of a place where they are on top of the social scale. Not even Sour Apple is deterring it! But he has already made SOME progress over the last two days. The manager tod me to keep in touch and let him know how he improves, and if I decide I can't handle it I can give him back, which I hope I won't have to do. His name is "Nibbler." I'll tell you what, right now I would let a baby play with my ball python before I would let an 8 year old near that fuzzball.
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