Ferret Training
By Kristen Onasch
That’s right, ferrets can be litter trained! While they usually aren’t as consistent about it as cats, ferrets can be trained to use the litter box in their cages and out in the room. However, before we get into the specifics of litter training, it’s important to know that many ferrets may never be 100% accurate while roaming around outside of the cage. So if picking up the occasional “accident” is going to bother you, ferrets may not be the pet for you!
Choosing Litter & Litter Pans
Ferrets can be very picky about where they go to the bathroom, which is why it’s important that you find a safe litter they like and a litter pan that’s big enough.
When picking out a litter for your fuzzy, you want to think of your ferret’s health first and make sure the product is safe for ferret usage. A lot of ferrets like to “snorkel” in their litter. This means that it’s important to find one that is unscented and as dust free as possible. Ferrets have very delicate respiratory systems, and litters that have a strong odor and produce a lot of dust are not healthy for their sensitive lungs.
Ferrets sometimes also wipe their bottoms before they get out of the pan. This means that you should avoid all clumping litters that are not made of wheat or labeled as safe for ferret usage. Other materials will expand when they get wet, which means they can get stuck inside your ferret’s rectum or nose, possibly requiring surgery to remove the hardened plug. You will also want to avoid all cedar and pine shavings, as the chemicals they give off are irritating to your ferrets’ eyes and can cause respiratory disease and asthma.
So now that you know a few kinds of litters that you shouldn’t use, here’s what you can use! Good litters include:
- Recycled newspaper pellets
- Denatured wood litter pellets – kiln-dried to remove harmful phenols
- Wood stove pellets – safe for animal usage and made from hardwoods only
- Wheat-based clumping litter, such as Swheat Scoop
- 100% Bentonite Pearl Litter, such as Super Pet Critter Litter
- Alfalfa pellets (rabbit food)
Acceptable litters if you run out of regular litter include:
- Unscented clay cat litter – not clumping only, not recommended for regular use because it can be dusty.
- Shredded newspaper
- Shredded paper towels
Do not use the following litters under any circumstances!
- Clumping clay litters – can cause blockages
- Silica litters – these suck up moisture and can cause damage to mucous membranes
- Scented litters
- Cedar shavings
- Corncob litters – these are too dusty and, if your ferret is in the habit of trying to eat its litter, can cause blockages
- Wood chips – besides the obvious splinters, they can also contain harmful phenols that can hurt your ferret’s lungs
Litter pans should be large enough that the ferret can comfortably fit all four of its feet in them. When the ferret is younger, a small triangular litter box should be fine, but as the ferret gets older, you may find that you have to switch to a square or rectangular litter pan. You will also want to make sure the litter pan has a low entry, a high back and high sides. Ferrets back up when going to the bathroom, and you may find that they will back their butts right up over the side of a low litter pan! Both Marshall and Super Pet carry some good high back litter pans.
Training Methods Inside the Cage
First and foremost, you have to teach the ferret what the litter pan is for. Upon coming across a litter pan for the first time, many will look at it as a fun toy to dig in – they snorkel in it, throw it everywhere, sleep in it – you get the picture! You can indicate that the litter pan is a toilet by placing a few feces in one corner and putting a few pieces of “wet” litter around it. Ferrets find their toilet by smell, so if they smell their feces and urine in the litter box, they will realize that that is where they’re supposed to go to the bathroom. Never clean the pan out completely – always put those few pieces of used litter back in until the litter training is complete.
Ferrets have a very short digestive system, so food only takes about 3 – 4 hours to go through their bodies. This means that they go to the bathroom a lot! You will usually see your ferret run down to the litter box within five minutes of waking up. Don’t let your ferret out of its cage until it has used the pan. With some ferrets, you will have to reach into the cage and place them in the litter box with their nose facing the corner with the used litter. If that doesn’t work, try snuggling it for a few minutes after it wakes up (until it has to go), and then placing it back in the cage directly in the litter pan. After awhile, it will become habit for your ferret to use the litter box immediately after it wakes up and before it comes out to play.
A few tips to help you with your training:
- Always fasten the litter pan to the cage in some way – if you don’t, your ferret will move it and go to the bathroom next to or behind it.
- If your ferret is going in other corners, limit it to one level if possible. Put water & food bowls or bedding in the spots you don’t want them to go, and cover the rest of the floor with blankets, sleep sacks, etc. This will distinguish those areas as an eating or sleeping place, and most ferrets won’t go to the bathroom there.
- If your ferret does have an accident, move the solid waste into the litter box. Clean the area thoroughly with a cleaner such as Nature’s Miracle that completely eliminates odors. Ferrets find their litter box by smell, so if the area still smells like their feces, they’ll use it again.
- Use positive reinforcement – reward the ferret with Ferretone or some other treat when it uses the litter box.
- Scoop the litter box daily and dump it once a week. You may have to do this more often with multiple ferret households. You wouldn’t want to use a dirty toilet, and
- For ferrets who like to dig in the litter box, give them something else to dig and burrow in. Outside the cage you can use a dig box. Inside the cage give them nice bedding – sacks, nest boxes, etc – to sleep and hide in so they don’t do it in the litter box.
Be warned – some ferrets are very good at faking it! Often times once they associate a treat or getting out of the cage with going to the bathroom, they will pretend to go so you will reward them. If you have a faker, watch its sides when it’s in the box. If its sides move, it really is going to the bathroom. Check the box to be sure, and then go ahead and let it out.
Don’t hit, yell at or in any way intimidate a ferret that doesn’t go in the appropriate place. This is counter productive, and will just result in an angry, confused and aggressive ferret. Some people give their ferret a time out if it goes outside the litter box, but you may find you have better results if you just reward the good behavior. You never want to punish a ferret for going outside the litter box after the fact. If you don’t witness the act, punishing the ferret later will not help. The ferret’s attention span is too short to connect the punishment with the “accident”, and it won’t know what it’s being punished for.
Training Methods Outside the Cage
Even if your ferret is 100% in its cage, it is very unlikely that it will be that good while roaming around the house! There are a few ferrets out there that will go back to their cages to use the litter box, but they are the exception rather than the rule. For this reason, you should always have multiple litter boxes around the area in which the ferret plays. The easiest way to do it is to see where the ferret chooses to go to the bathroom and just put the litter box there.
If you don’t want litter boxes all over your house or you have places where litter boxes won’t fit, you can use newspaper or puppy training pads. Make sure to change them frequently. These also work well for ferrets that refuse to use a litter pan outside the cage. Keep an eye on the puppy pads, and discontinue use immediately if it looks like your ferrets are chewing on them.
During the early stages of litter training, do not let your ferret run around unsupervised. You need to be there to watch the ferret in case it starts to back up in an area that has no litter box. If this happens, just pick the ferret up and place it where you want it to go. After it finishes, give it a reward so it associates going to the bathroom where you want it to with getting a treat.
One area that many ferrets like to use as a toilet is right in front of the main door to the house. This is the domestic ferret’s equivalent to marking the entrance to its “burrow”. There’s not really anything you can do about this, as it is the ferret’s natural instinct. Just put a litter box, newspaper or training pad there and change it frequently.
For serious offenders, limit their free roam playtimes to about 2 hours. Put them back into the cage to use the litter box and rest, and let them out only after they’ve gone to the bathroom or after they’ve slept for a while, whichever works best for your ferrets. This will help to reinforce the idea that out of cage time only happens after they use the litter box.
As with any other ferret training, the key to success with litter training is.
Clicker Training
By Kristen Onasch
Do you think that clicker training is just for dogs? Think again! Ferrets have been bred to have a high level of curiosity and well developed problem solving abilities. These traits combined with their innate intelligence make them well suited to clicker training.
But what is clicker training?
Clicker training revolves around the idea of positive reinforcement. When your ferret performs the desired action (uses the litter box, runs through a tube, comes when called, etc), you click and give it a reward. Incorrect behavior is ignored completely, only correct behavior is acknowledged and rewarded. The click indicates the good behavior, which allows the ferret to correctly identify what you want it to do (it could do several things between performing the action and hearing your praise/getting a treat that could confuse it as to what the good behavior was). This helps the ferret to learn faster and improves the chances for successful training.
What steps should I take to clicker train my ferret?
You will need to figure out ahead of time what reward(s) you’re going to use. Rewards can be a treat, praise, attention, toys, a favorite game – anything that your ferret really enjoys will work. You can use multiple kinds of rewards in one training session, and it’s a good idea to save the ferret’s very favorite reward for when it does especially well.
The first step in clicker training is getting the ferret to understand what the click is for. (Since for most ferrets the best reward is a treat, that is the reward that we will refer to.) Sit in front of your ferret, hand it a treat and click. If the ferret is too nippy, place the treat on the floor and click as it picks the treat up. Do this 4 or 5 times until the ferret makes the association between the click and the treat.
Next you want the ferret to associate repeat behaviors with the noise and the treat. Wait for the ferret to make a movement, then click and reward. Click as soon as the movement begins, and give the treat immediately after. Your ferret will very quickly realize that if it does something repeatedly, it will hear a click and get a treat.
Once your ferret has gotten the hang of the repeat behavior and will do it reliably, you can add cues, either verbal cues or hand gestures. To initiate this next step in the training, wait until the ferret does the action, then click and reward. The ferret will do it again to see if it gets the same reaction from you. After the ferret does this a few times, tell the ferret what to do as it’s doing it, click and reward. Then tell the ferret to do the action before the ferret does it. Eventually the ferret will realize that when you say or signal a certain cue, you are telling it to do a certain action. If your ferret starts to do the action all the time with the hope of getting a reward, only click and reward when your ferret does it on your command. This will teach your ferret that you will ignore begging behavior and reward only when you command the action.
Once the behaviors that you are training for have been firmly established, you can fade out the click and reward and use it only occasionally. Make sure to wait until your ferret is ready for this. If you fade out the click and reward too soon, the ferret may forget part or all of the training. The longer you click and reward, the more reinforced the training will be. If the ferret does seem to forget, simply start from the beginning again. Your ferret will quickly remember its training.
It doesn’t seem to be working – what am I doing wrong?
Make sure that the training is done in a relatively empty space at first. If there are lots of other things in the room for the ferret to explore, the training won’t be very successful. You want yourself, the clicker and the reward to be the most interesting things in the room.
Remember that while your ferret is very intelligent, there are still going to be times when it fails to meet the goals you’ve set for it. If it doesn’t receive a click more than three times in a row, change the goal you’re working toward to prevent frustration and allow your ferret to succeed. The training should be challenging for your ferret, but not impossible or frustrating.
Never react to negative behavior, not even to say “No”. Only the desired behaviors should be rewarded. Make sure to avoid doing anything that the ferret might find upsetting or frightening during training, or it will counteract all of the work you are doing. This includes scolding, yelling or any kind of physical punishment. The point of clicker training is to positively reinforce good behaviors, not to punish bad or undesired ones.
Adjust your training to fit your ferret’s personality and intelligence. Some ferrets will fly through training, and other may have a harder time understanding and repeating the desired behaviors. Because of this, you will want to come up with a few different training ideas. Make sure to always have the next few steps of your training program planned out in case your ferret surprises you! On the flip side of this, have an alternate, less aggressive training program on hand in case your ferret progresses slowly.
Sessions should be short at first, and if your ferret seems to be getting bored or distracted, switch to click training for another action. The point isn’t just to train your ferret, but also to improve your relationship with it. Clicker training is a form of enrichment for your ferret and a great way for you two to interact, so be patient and enjoy it!
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