In this Newsletter- Ralphie Can You Hear Me? Raising a Deaf Ferret
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Ralphie Can You Hear Me?
Raising a Deaf Ferret
By Eric Shefferman Reprinted from Modern Ferret Magazine Issue #10
This magazine is available for purchase at:
http://modernferretstore.com/12/33.htm
Note: Since this article was written, several of the ferrets mentioned in it have died. Sabrina, Ralph, Marshmallow, Knuks, and Bosco are all resting in peace. Trixie is an old lady of seven.
 Ralph on the cover of Modern Ferret issue #3. You can see the white stripe on his head. |
When we saw Ralph, we knew we wanted him. He was a beautiful, friendly kit with a big white stripe on his head. We brought him home and learned the hard way that giving a baby ferret food, litter, and a dish of water leads to a ferret covered with a sticky paste of food, litter, and water -- but that's another story ...
Ralph is our second ferret, and the first ferret we got as a kit (Sabrina was 6 months old when we got her), so we didn't know what to expect. He seemed fairly normal to us, at least as normal as ferrets get. As he grew, we started to wonder about some of his behaviors. Sometimes it seemed as though he just couldn't hear. When he played with Sabrina, he would sometimes get a little rough. Sabrina would start yelping her "That's enough" sound, but Ralph just wouldn't give up. For a while, we would put Bitter Apple on Sabrina's neck to discourage Ralph from rough play. Since Ralph wasn't drawing blood, we figured he was just overly energetic, and would grow out of this phase as long as he was given plenty of love and exercise.
We had Sabrina trained to come when we squeaked a squeaky toy (by giving her treats when she came running). Whenever we squeaked, both Sabrina and Ralph would come running. Yet when the two of them were playing chase, if Sabrina went out of sight around a corner, Ralph would often stop as if she had just vanished. We kept going back and forth as to whether or not we thought Ralph was deaf. We figured that everything is new to a kit, so it is often hard to get his attention. Trying to test Ralph for deafness was very difficult, since he could follow the slightest hand motion. We tried never to sneak up and surprise either of the ferrets, so we never discovered how easy it was to sneak up on Ralph.
The event that finally clinched it for us was when Ralph was playing in the kitchen one day and knocked over a broom that had been leaning against the wall. Mary was in the kitchen and was startled by the sound. I was across the house and was startled by the sound. The broom landed behind Ralph and he never noticed. From that point we knew that he was definitely deaf.
Further experience has shown that to test whether a ferret can hear you, you need something that will produce a loud, interesting sound (like the sound a squeaky makes) without requiring you to make an obvious motion. You have to make sure the ferret is looking the other say when you make the sound, then see if the ferret reacts. Ralph has always made up for his deafness by being alert to what he sees around him. For example, he was always watchful for Sabrina making a beeline for a person. That meant that she was going for a treat, so he should follow (thus making us think he heard the call).
We now know that ferrets with white heads (panda), white stripes (blaze) or dark-eyed-white (not albino) ferrets are often (but not always) deaf -- with the deafness being genetically linked to the white fur. Knuks, who is a dark-eyed-white (see the cover of Modern Ferret Issue #1 at
http://modernferretstore.com/12/27.htm
for her striped coat pattern when she was a kit), is also deaf.
Deaf ferrets present their own array of unique challenges. First, they obviously are unaware when you are yelling at them. Thus you can't get their attention from across the room, and shouting "Ouch!" if they nip you won't help either. If a deaf ferret is behaving undesirably, like pooping in the wrong corner, you have to go to the ferret. For nip training, scruffing still works, as does Bitter Apple and cage time-outs -- see Modern Ferret Issue #9, available for purchase at:
http://modernferretstore.com/12/32.htm
You'll want to monitor a deaf ferret's play with other ferrets -- the other ferrets don't expect that if they shout "Uncle!" the deaf ferret won't hear them. Once we realized that Ralph was playing too rough, too often, we started putting some Bitter Apple on Sabrina's coat to discourage Ralph. Ralph would also lose Sabrina if he was chasing her and she turned a corner. For him, out of sight meant that she had disappeared. This gave her an opportunity to break off from him if he was getting too rough.
Deaf ferrets are very easy to sneak up on. We always try to move our hand into Ralph's field of vision before picking him up. This way he knows who it is. If you tap Ralph on his shoulder, he always turns around rapidly with his mouth open to see what tapped him. He doesn't bite because he knows that it could be a human tapping him just as much as it could be another ferret. Turning and biting can be a problem if a ferret bites out of fear. These ferrets should be handled with sensitivity. We've worked with Ralph enough that he knows to check that it's a ferret poking him before he bites back. We've always reassured him that people are very nice. He never gets it wrong.
Ralph and Knuks are both very sound sleepers. Since noise doesn't wake them, you have to nudge them a few times to get them going. When you open the cage to let everyone out, you have to make sure you wake Ralph and Knuks or they'll sleep right through playtime. Once they're awake, they're very attentive -- much more than our other ferrets.
Although the deafness is a handicap, it doesn't usually cause any problems for domesticated animals. Ferrets get their food handed to them in a bowl, so deafness isn't a survival issue. The most serious concern is that you can't train a deaf ferret to come to a special sound. This can be a real problem if the ferret goes to sleep in some hidden corner or accidentally gets outside. The best thing you can do is be especially careful watching over them and keep track of their favorite snooze spots. Some people train their deaf ferrets to come to thumping on the floor (because the ferret can feel the vibrations).
Getting the new kits, Trixie and Bosco, has been a very interesting experience for us. They both have very good hearing and are curious and sometimes frightened of each new sound. Crumpling a paper bag puts them into a frenzy. In contrast, Ralph and Knuks don't hear the bag and Sabrina and Marshmallow are both very easygoing about sounds (except vacuum cleaners). Bringing the ferrets out in public as we do for shows and events, Ralph and Knuks are always very easy to work with. Car horns, parrots squawking, kids shouting, and other loud noises don't bother them (they only respond to what they see) -- making them much calmer and better spokes-ferrets. Their deafness even enables them to calmly sleep in the midst of chaos.
When we were living in a split-level house, Ralph would always know then we were going up the few steps to the bedrooms. He would come charging across the house (the bedrooms and bathroom were off-limits). We don't know how he knew -- vibrations or whatever -- but he would always come running. He was always paying attention to what we were doing. We used to joke that he had to run right up to everything to get a good look -- just in case it was Elvis.
Despite being deaf, Ralph was the easiest ferret to teach a trick. He is always watching us to see what we're doing, so it was easy to teach him to stand and beg for a treat when we gave a hand signal (this article is in Modern Ferret Magazine Issue #5, which is sold out). By watching what Ralph did to get a treat, the other ferrets all learned the hand signal.
All in all, Ralph and Knuks both get along fine despite being deaf. Both required a bit of extra attention for training, but mostly just needed gentle understanding. Since they are always watching us to see what we're doing, they actually pay more attention to us than the ferrets who can hear us but choose to ignore us. Although they can't hear us tell them how much we love them, we say it anyway, and we are pretty sure they understand.
Update on Modern Ferret Things
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--Mary & Eric Shefferman and Trixie, Koosh and Gabby (the ferrets, of course!)
Stay tuned for more. You can always get updates by reading my blog (a blog is an online journal). I keep it sporadically and it usually runs to the more personal stuff. But you might like it. It's at http://www.modernferretblog.com/mary
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