Deaf ferrets

dereksbicycles

dereksbicycles

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I know one of my friends who had a deaf ferret. Some years ago, we had disagreement. You see, she refused to teach her deaf ferret ASL. I thought that she should have tried. You never know. It would be nice if deaf ferrets got together with other deaf ferrets, use ASL and enjoy good time in Deaf World. Imagine how much fun they would have. However my friend didn't think that was benefical. At least, I tried.....
 
I used to have a deaf ferret. He was incredibly cute and playful. However, I don't think he had even close to the attention span required to learn ASL. :lol:
 
Tousi said:
And that required every "toe" it has, right? :lol:
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:giggle:...When Vince (my friend) told me, I was pretty skeptical about it...so he took the bird out of the cage, and repeated "ILY" over and over, and finally the bird lifted up his claw....and Vince said...."See! He's saying "ILY"....
 
Bottesini said:
I used to have a deaf ferret. He was incredibly cute and playful. However, I don't think he had even close to the attention span required to learn ASL. :lol:
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Yeah, I owned two ferrets and it was almost impossible to teach them sign language. My ferrets will respond to their name, and litter train. Thats only two thing I could train my ferrets to do.
 
I have worked with ferrets but not for some time.
<trainer in me here....>
my experience was, as with any animal, the trick is finding the reinforcer.
For ferrets, that may not only be food - and food would be something meaty as opposed to "ferret chow" since ferrets are technically carnivores - but also opportunities, such as the chance to go play, to go burrow or hide in something, to investigate a novel object. Or even the chance to play "laser tag" <Carefully, some animals may get too obsessed with it> And you may get a 1/2 second behavior out of a ferret, or an approximation as opposed to the gross<large, complete> motion.


so, for a namesign, you could focus on one part of the sign, or the ferret watching your hand, or even stopping motion for a second and flicking their head your way.
 
dogmom said:
I have worked with ferrets but not for some time.
<trainer in me here....>
my experience was, as with any animal, the trick is finding the reinforcer.
For ferrets, that may not only be food - and food would be something meaty as opposed to "ferret chow" since ferrets are technically carnivores - but also opportunities, such as the chance to go play, to go burrow or hide in something, to investigate a novel object. Or even the chance to play "laser tag" <Carefully, some animals may get too obsessed with it> And you may get a 1/2 second behavior out of a ferret, or an approximation as opposed to the gross<large, complete> motion.


so, for a namesign, you could focus on one part of the sign, or the ferret watching your hand, or even stopping motion for a second and flicking their head your way.
Click to expand...


The question is, have you ever successfully trained one to read sign language?
 
Ferrets are famous for not having a great vision to start with.

Birds have better vision, go complain about deaf birds.

-The deaf ferret ex-owner. RIP Roxy :(
 
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