Deaf Ferret

Question
Hi I have owned ferrets for about 3 years and I have recently adopted a deaf ferret.  This is not the first deaf ferret I have had but I am having a hard time training this one.  He is about 4 months old and is very hyper (as expected).  My concern is he is biting and we have not been able to train him yet.  I scuff him and put him in his cage when he bites but as soon as he is out he gets so excited that he is at it again.  I understand that he is not biting to be mean, he is just playing but as he is getting older it hurts more.  I would really like to put a stop to it ASAP but because he is deaf he does not know what "no bite" means like my other ferrets.  Do you have any suggestions on how to stop the biting?

Answer
Hi Kassie:

What a wonderful person you must be to take on a task like this. I've never personally had a deaf ferret, but had a dear friend who had one. I picked up quite a few tricks from her - hand signals, foot stomping to get their attention, etc.  Funniest thing that used to crack me up was when she would do a hand signal to tell her little one to go to bed and the ferret didn't want to go to bed yet, so she would look away, essentially teling her mommy "I can't hear (see) you!"  LOL  I used to just laugh myself silly over that little sweetheart! What wonderful little personalities they have!!

If I remember correctly, when my friend's ferret would bite her, she would bite her back on the paw. Not hard enough to really hurt, but hard enough to get the ferret's attention and let the ferret know it hurt. She would screw up her face in a really mean look and pick up the ferret's paw and put it between her front teeth and then bite down on the pads while looking the ferret in the eye and then wiggle that index finger in front of the ferret's face.  Do be careful - I'm certainly NOT saying it's okay to bite a ferret hard...and do be careful about puttting your face down around the ferret's face if he's still in a biting mood. Make sure he can see that you are biting him and do it just as soon as he has bit you - it can't be even a half minute later; it has to be immediately afterwards so he can associate bite = pain.  Because he isn't trying to hurt you, rather is trying to play with you, so when he sees that what he is doing is causing pain, he should stop.  Of course, you should follow will snuggles and love so he knows you love him.

I'm *assuming* you've already tried the normal way to tell a deaf ferret not to bite - to wiggle your index finger in front of his face immediately after the bite occurs.

Best of luck - I almost always think that love and positive reinforcement are the best way to train ferrets, but I also know how contankerous these little deafies can be when they are in the 'terrible twos' stage and need to learn not to bite.  Please give that sweet precious little boy a hug and kiss from me?  Hope that biting gets under control really quickly!

Sincerely,

Jacquie Rodgers