Grant's training session, Khristine's cage, and conclusion

So Grant had a very interesting training session with Meeka on Saturday, with relatively good results. It was pretty starightforward: he sat down with her for an hour and let her continue to bite him. From what I understand, she would approach and bite him, and then he would scruff her and put her back down. THIS LASTED AN HOUR! Now I don't generally think that intense hour long training sessions like this work, but he said he just kind of lost track of time. And as she could've easily left the room and he would've left her alone, she didn't. Maybe she viewed it as a game or some kind of battle of wits, I'm not really sure. The end result was this: by then end she would approach him but not bite. So this tells me that maybe we just need to up the ante a bit and lengthen our training sessions. Instead of waiting for the behavior to happen, put her in the situation where the behavior happens repeatedly and show her that this is the result, every time. In the long term, it resulted in her biting him far less than she previously did. However, she still bites me, so maybe I need to try this one out myself?

(A Grant and Meeka session. She'e not actually biting as hard as it seems)

My one and only (and most awesome) follower, Khristine, had a great idea the other day. She explained to me that when they sent her nephew to his bedroom, he didn't really care until they unplugged his T.V., and then all hell breaks lose. She equated this with the problem I had been experiencing with Meeka that I mentioned in a previous post about how she doesn't seem to view her cage as a punishment anymore, and suggested I put her in her carrier for time outs instead. I think this is a great idea! My only problem is that when I tried to do it I discovered that my carrier was warped from taking it apart and putting it back together so many times, so as soon as I can get a new carrier, I'm going to try this. Now this may make it difficult for future carrier trips if she sees it as a punishment, but those are ffew and far between and this is a risk I'm willing to take.

(Meeka, trying to give me a guilt trip while on a time out)

So this is my last post before I pass in my case study..I definitely feel that the training I have done has come a long way in improving Meeka's aggression. I mean, she isn't perfect, and by no means would I trust her around a stranger yet. However, I feel much more comfortable around her than I did when we first got her. During the first week I remember thinking "What have I done? What kind of insane monster have I let into my house?". I don't feel that way anymore. I would never have tried to approach her then in the ways I do now. I think we are on the right path to having an aggression free (or at least a solid aggression diminished) ferret. This kind of thing doesn't happen overnight, and ferrets aren't always easy to train. I believe there are too many ferret owners who bought one thinking that it would happen overnight, and this kind of thinking is what lead to ferrets like Meeka being in this kind of situation in the first place. You can't predict how long it's going to take an animal to change their ways (if ever, in the case of some abused animals), but it makes me feel better just to know I've made some progress.

And maybe, someday, some poor victim of toe terrorism will stumble upon this blog and it could help them out, just a little.