How To Bond With Your Ferret? 10 Things To Be Aware Of

Ferrets are social and active pets if you expose them to a social environment and bond with your ferret at an early age.

They are exceptionally playful, and you can quickly train them to do various things.

Moreover, they have a lifespan of around five to ten years.

When getting a ferret, you should consider the gender, cost, needs, age, and how many of them you want.

Your duty to take care of your ferret can be challenging at times.

Today, we will look into how you can make a strong bond with your ferret!

There Are Various Ways You Can Bond With Your Ferret

1. Paying Attention To It

First, analyze your ferret’s body language to relate to it appropriately.

Giving your ferret attention makes it feel wanted and will be comfortable with you.

You could let it chase you, or you can chase it instead.

Alternatively, you could also make it play with your hand.

For instance, rotate your hand around your ferret and allow it to follow the motion of your hand.

Also, allow the ferret to wrestle with your hand for fun.

When your ferret gets excited, it will make little sounds like chirping.

While playing with them, you should ensure that your hands are clean and free from food scents.

You can hold them in your arms when sleepy to make them feel wanted.

Moreover, you could play fetch with your ferret or let it chase you.

When it plays with you, it is a sign that it loves and trusts you.

Giving your ferret attention and being able to interact with them contributes to their mental and physical health.

2. Let Them Be As Active As Possible

Letting your ferret move up and about around the house makes it feel comfortable and brave to play around. In addition, this opens a way for building a strong bond with your ferret.

If you have other ferrets, you should let them socialize, run, climb, and play.

You can join them by making them fetch things for you while playing to familiarize them better. Try not to lock your little ferret in a cage for a whole day.

It has social characteristics like humans, whereby if locked up for long in a cage, they may end up depressed or even acquire health problems.

Leave its cage’s door open, so it may have the freedom to get in and out whenever it wants.

Ferrets can also dance a bit, and you can play some music and dance along with them.

You will be amazed when your ferret joins you to express how excited it is by jumping up and down in a rhythm.

3. Rewarding Your Little Ferret

You can train your ferret using treats. When it does a routine task correctly, you give it some treats to motivate it since they are easy to train.

For example, you can give the ferret a treat when it goes to relieve itself outside the house instead of messing inside your home.

Also, provide the ferret treats while in the house when it eats at the required spot and fetches something that you accidentally dropped.

The treats you give your ferret should be medically approved and fit for ferrets to avoid complications.

Never give your ferret chocolates.

Likewise, when training your ferret, you should not make it seem like a serious business.

At least joke around with it but make it get the training part as expected.

Feeding it directly from your hand also enhances its trust and helps to build a strong bond between you and your ferret.

4. Give Your Ferret Toys To Play With

Giving your ferret toys makes it feel like you are giving them friends to play with, making them get used to chewing their things instead of chewing your items in the house.

When buying your ferret a toy, you should ensure that there are no removable parts or small parts that can be swallowed.

5. Holding And Cuddling

You can hold your ferret in your arms or let it rest on your shoulder when watching TV.

Never force your ferret to stay with you since it might want its time alone, and you should let it be.

You could also rub its stomach in a circular motion to show them affection.

A ferret shows affection by licking you or when it always wants to stay near you or be held many times.

You should avoid playing with its face around the nose since it might get irritated.

This direct contact will improve the ferret’s ability to recognize you as its owner and increase bonding with you.

6. Communicating With Your Ferret

Ferrets can somehow understand human language.

Frequently greeting it with a good morning and a goodnight strengthens the bond between the two of you and makes it fond of you.

Never scold or use aggressive words and tone on your ferret.

Instead, use soft words when communicating with it because being aggressive will make it afraid of you.

You should not be worried about having a noisy pet! Ferrets rarely make a sound, mostly when injured, excited, or frightened by something.

7. Taking It For A Walk

Taking your ferret outside for a walk creates a specific bond between you and your ferret.

It’s like a ferret exercise that helps avoid heart complications due to motion dormancy.

When taking it for a walk, you should avoid contact with other animals, such as cats and dogs, since they may end up fighting, which is not good.

A healthy ferret should be active, have bright eyes, and produce no discharge from its openings, including the nose, ears, mouth, and eyes.

Take care of your ferret to make it happy and stay healthy.

8. Letting It Follow You Around

Ferrets are curious creatures and will always want to know what you are up to.

Therefore, you should allow them to follow you around the house since it makes them feel safe.

There is a friendly alternative where you can buy a leash and use it on your ferret to guide it around the house.

Also, control your moods; even when you are mad, don’t take out your anger on the ferret.

9. Involving It In Some Of Your Activities

When you are doing something in the house, your ferret will want to be involved and thus keep it busy. Doing this will make it get used to you quite well.

It is like your ferret’s” I want to help” kind of message. Ferrets are friendly pets that will always amuse you.

10. Training Your Ferret

You could be training your ferret to do specific tasks such as collecting items you have dropped, climbing up a chair, relieving itself outside the house, and returning to its cage.

You are giving it attention by training it, and it will familiarize itself with you quickly.

And if you reward it with treats, the better!

Final Takeaway

You should be aware that ferrets have emotions and, therefore, can be depressed at times.

Some signs of a ferret being depressed are: refusing to eat or sit and not playing around with its toys like it is used to.

Watch your ferret’s moves and moods to prevent it from getting depressed.

If you have a dog or a cat, you need to help them get used to each other and be friendly.

In the same way, control their movement and spaces since they might start hurting one another.

At first, you can put your ferret in a locked cage and let your dog or cat look at the ferret from a distance.

This helps them avoid physical contact and helps you identify the next step of making them close to one another.

After a while, you can let them stay close to each other, but, most preferably, hold your ferret in case the dog or cat wants to attack it.

With time they will get used to one another and play together. You can cut your ferret’s claws or trim them to reduce the risks of scratching items in the house of fabric material.

Don’t bathe your ferret too often since it may affect its natural coat and oils, leading to skin complications.

You should also be aware that ferrets have a better memory than cats but lower than dogs.

Following the advice mentioned in this article will help you make a strong bond with your ferret in no time!

Amanda

Purrfect n’ Pawesome is the brainchild of Amanda, who has been into researching and writing about pets to help other pet parents in nurturing their adorable pets. Currently, she runs Purrfect n’ Pawesome along with her team of experienced and dedicated pet experts. Along with being an awesome writer and entrepreneur, Amanda is a cat mom to two innocently spoiled cats, Balanca and Scruffy.
She has been writing about pet care and nurturing and wants to share her readers’ experiences, learnings, and knowledge.
Over the years, she had the opportunity to work with various pet owners having multiple breeds, and that exposure gave her experience and the lessons of a lifetime.
Her family, her entire universe revolves around her two cats, who give her endless support and inspiration to move ahead with her objectives in life. Amanda is a live example of a balanced approach to all parenthood questions we all face in life.