Ferrets are not like dogs or cats

WASHINGTON – After having had the usual family pets – hamsters, fish, a lizard, a dog – Nat Eliason was ready for something more exotic. Like a ferret. Or maybe a pair of ferrets.

For months he read everything he could about the slinky critters.But his parents were still uncertain. Dad insisted that Nat, who’s 12, take full responsibility for caring for the animals. Mom had to be shown that ferrets don’t smell horrible or attack for no reason – common misbeliefs that have given ferrets a bad rap, Nat says.

Finally, this summer, Nat got his wish. Blizzard and Zorro, frisky two-year-olds from the FerretsFirst rescue shelter in Annandale, Va., moved into his home in nearby McLean.

During the day, while Nat is in school, the ferrets stay in a 4 1/2-foot-high cage that has two hammocks, a fleece blanket, ladders to climb and containers for food, water and kitty litter.

When Nat gets home, the fun begins. After sleeping all day, Zorro and Blizzard want to play. They race around Nat’s room like furry subway trains, darting here and there and checking every nook to see if anything has changed since their last visit. Then they chase one another or go after Nat’s socks.

"They’re extremely cool," Nat says of his mischievous pets. "They’re nothing like a dog or a cat. I’m not saying they’re better. They love to make you laugh, and everything that happens, they have to know about it."

At the end of Nat’s bed is a cardboard play box he made using plastic pipes and cornstarch packing peanuts. Nat drops Zorro into the box, and in a few seconds the ferret is poking his head out of one of the pipes at the bottom. Blizzard, his hunter instincts alerted, races over and tries to keep Zorro from getting out.

Later Zorro demonstrates his disappearing act, crawling into the bottom drawer of Nat’s desk and reappearing seconds later – in the top drawer.

Ferrets need to be free to explore for at least three hours a day, so Nat spends lots of time in his room. One day, he was doing homework on his computer when "Zorro ran across the keyboard and everything disappeared. I was like, ‘Oh no!’ "

"Anything they can squeeze through, they love it," Nat says.

Nat takes his ferret duties seriously. He feeds his pets, cleans their cage, cuts their nails once a week and rubs vitamin-filled oil on their tummies.

"Dook-dook!" Nat says, imitating the sound ferrets make when wrestling.

"Chill out, OK?" he says.

"Dook-dook," they reply.– The Washington Post