Ferrets are like toddlers

I share my home with 6 ferrets.

I'll let that sink in for a while.

Processed that yet? Ok, as I was saying, I have 6 ferrets in one of the bedrooms of my house. 3 boys and 3 girls. I got the first ferret around 5 years ago and have been adding them steadily ever since. Their names are: Fox, Claudia, Louis, Scully, Bella and Skeeter. They need their own room because they live in 3 separate cages and that takes up some serious space. There's a boy and a girl in each cage. The question people always ask here is whether or not I breed them. NO. They are all fixed, thank the good Lord. They also need their own room because of the smell. Ferrets produce oils that make them quite odoriferous. It takes constant vigilance to keep their bedding and cages clean and as smell-free as possible.

Next to their smell, the most well-known ferret trait is curiosity. They explore, they romp, they steal. Sometimes all at once. Ferrets are perhaps the best animals to train you for parenthood. Just like a young child, they have to be watched CONSTANTLY. You can't leave them unattended for more than 30 seconds unless you crave disaster. They're liable to eat something they shouldn't or climb a piece of furniture and fall off. They knock over glasses and carry off any item that strikes their fancy and is small enough to drag. You mustn't put any behavior past them, both for their own good and that of your belongings. In the course of my ferret owning my boyfriend and I have saved them from leaping from the suicidal height of a recliner back, disappearing into a sub woofer, tearing out a nail after getting it caught in a towel, drinking an entire glass of Mountain Dew, and escaping the house entirely.

But the ferret trait with which I'm most concerned today (and one they also share with toddlers) is their reluctance to be potty-trained. I moved into my house in May of this year and the ferrets have occupied their bedroom here since then. Ferrets are like many small animals in that they instinctively find a corner when it's time to relieve themselves. Knowing this, I put something in each corner of the room but the one I wanted them to use. I used cages and dog beds to funnel them towards the corner opposite the door where I put one of those sheets of plastic you keep under the wheels of your desk chair. They got the idea pretty quickly and started doing most of their business either there or in their cages. I let them out of their cages for about 3 hours a day to get their wiggles out. I play with them or use my laptop until it's time to put them up again. Once the cages are clean and the ferrets are bedded down in them I wipe off the plastic latrine area with paper towels and it's all set for the next day. When it gets gross, all I have to do is Windex it.

But ferrets and children, no matter how much you love and encourage them, do not always want to go potty in the right place. For three nights running, Claudia decided that the stretch of carpet between her cage and Bella and Skeeter's was as good a place as any. After the first time I explained that it was not a potty place and after cleaning the carpet, put a big plush fish in the spot to convince her. She went next to the fish after that. But ferrets, much like Fate (and like toddlers; do we see a theme here?) are fickle and she stopped after the third night.

Then, tonight as I was sitting on the futon with my trusty laptop, I watched Louis opt for the corner right by the door. Louis is my favorite. I make no secret of this fact. But Louis is also a bit "special" and it's hard to be upset with him. It's not like there was much I could do anyway. You have about as much chance of stopping the impending carpet soiling from happening as you do of getting to your cat and moving her onto the linoleum in time to save the Persian rug she's dry-heaving over.

My favorite is when I start cleaning and returning ferrets to their cages and notice that someone left me a present behind the futon. The very futon on which I've been sitting for a couple of hours. It's as if they're saying, "if you'd been watching us more closely, this never would have happened..."