Ferrets know a little bit about doors and what magic they perform.   Close your bathroom door for some privacy, and a ferret is sure to appear, scratching to get in.  Why is this?  Well, they’re just so curious they can’t stand the idea that something exciting might be happening in there, and they’re missing it.

Also, doors provide treats in many forms. A case in point would be the food gifts that come forth when humans open the refrigerator door.  In a ferret’s world, doors have possibilities, especially when they go from closed to open.

After Bun’s First Outing, he sat by the french doors out of which his adventure began, hoping he’d get to go out through them again.  That one time, boy did those doors produce great things.  Bun got to rub in some real dirt, snake through the plants, and get lots of whiffs.

So, for my ferrets at least, doors are magical, powerful, and full of possibilities, all good.  So what does it mean when ferrets leave messages on thresholds of doors?  After Bun’s Second Outing, he left a message on the threshold of the door we had gone through.  He’s done it before, after someone had left for the day.  An old ferret used to leave messages frequently, at the threshold of the main door to our apartment.  It seems to be linked to having just gone through that door…today Bun seemed to be saying, I know how you get out there, and just letting you know that I know.  And I’m jealous, so here’s a quick note to remind you that I’m jealous.

It’s true, it’s like they want the door to open again, want the magic to occur, so they communicate this with a poop message.   They are posting messages right where you’ll be sure to see them when you’re exercizing your enviable ability to move between the inside and the outside worlds.

Hippie doesn’t get out much, and to tell you the truth he’s not all that interested in venturing beyond the five walls of our half-hexagon shaped apartment.  He’s a tough old guy, and he’s seen the harsh side of life.  Having been abandoned by his previous owners and left caged in the night outside the shelter in oppressive tropical swelter, he knows the dark side of life.

Anyway, we recently took Hippie to the beach, on what was supposed to be a fun outing for all.  Bun went too, on his very first excursion outside the home.  Having become frail and balding, Pig stayed home and attended to her roach army.

Like a sour old man who’s lost joy in the newness and strangeness of life’s surprises, Hippie didn’t give one s*%t about the beach.  Bun did what all ferrets seem to do when we let them loose near water: head for the hills.  So, while one of us chased Bun the other had to hold Hippie, who would also scurry inland from the ocean, after having taken a quick whiff at the water’s edge.  He’d make it as far as the tall grasses behind the sand, then have to be hoisted up by his shoulders before he tunneled away out of site.  They both hated it.   Here’s Hippie after being scooped up just before he made it to the border (i.e. sidewalk).

Hippie Emerging from a Couch Nap

If you love your couch, you will need a Couch Protection Plan.  The couch is your pet ferret’s perfect environment:

1. dark
2. soft
3. full of hidden corners
4. comes with digging areas

To your ferret, the couch represents one humongous extended burrow, into which he can dig, tunnel, and excavate.  Oh yes, he will excavate your sofa.  First he’ll break through the fabric layer covering the bottom of your sofa.  Then he or she will explore upwards into the innards of the sofa.  Any padding will be dug out and end up on your rug or just laying underneath your couch.

Your pet ferret will squeeze between any wooden frame structure, in search of napping spots.  They may get stuck and you will have to turn your sofa upside down and coax your weasel out.  He may not want to come out, or he may be stuck.  It’s hard to tell.  And you can’t just grab his head and pull, of course.

Eventually, the ferret will break through and surface between the sofa cushions, when you are least expecting it.  Plan for a ferret head popping up next to you as you watch TV, to your dismay as you realize where he’s come from.  Now your couch has been ferretized.  It is no longer your couch.  It belongs to your ferret, and he will make it his home.

This is Hippy, emerging after a long couch nap.  Not yet fully awake, he’s still in a half dream state, in part made possible by the dark innards of the couch environment.

Closeup of Bun

This is Bun, who’s about a year old.  Bun doesn’t live in a cage and he lives with two other ferrets who also roam free inside our apartment.  Point is, he’s very active, curious, and hardly ever sits still, and he’s very in tune with every single movement I and my boyfriend make.  Any new sound, and he’s there to investigate.  I crouch down to his level (e.g. for this picture), and he trots over to see what I’m up to.

To ferrets, small mechanical noises represent awesome potential for discovery and mischief.  The inner workings of my Canon Rebel Xsi produce tiny sounds that will draw a ferret away from whatever he or she is doing, finding the potential for discovery simply irresistible.

That’s what Bun is doing.   He was actually very involved in trying to catch wooden beads that were swinging at the end of the cord to the venetian blinds.  But the camera sounds made him drop everything and rush over, coming up to the point where my camera had trouble focusing on everything.

And that is why it’s very hard to capture a ferret on camera and have the picture come out clear and sharp.  And using the flash, well let’s just say using the flash in a dark ferret corner means you will have pictures of what look like opossums.