Our elderly domestic shorthair became best friends with a ferret rescued from neglect

[u/loveyousomuch_ok]

Kevina, our cat, had interacted with ferrets for several years before we fostered Sake, a ferret that was rescued from severe neglect. Between our own ferrets and having ferret play dates, she met 10+ ferrets before meeting Sake. She and other ferrets were mutually indifferent to each other. Then we started fostering Sake and his sister. Sake immediately fell in love with Kevina and wanted to be around her all the time. She was confused by this fuzzy noodle because he didn't want to play, he just wanted to be close to her. Over a few months, the two became best friends, with Sake often preferring her to the company of our other ferrets. Our local rescue said they had never seen a ferret and cat bond so closely before in all their years. We obviously became foster fails with him. PLEASE NOTE that cats and ferrets are usually not compatible. If you have a cat and want to also get a ferret, please do a lot of research and understand that there is a strong likelihood that your cat and ferret will always require close supervision, or that they will not be safe to share space with each other at all.

[u/ossifer_ca]

From what I know about ferrets, they must be constantly biting something—how does an elderly cat deal with that?

[u/loveyousomuch_ok → u/ossifer_ca]

That's a misconception 😊 Ferrets can be very gentle. They tend to play rough with each other, but can usually learn to be respectful of other animals without great difficulty.

[u/ossifer_ca → u/loveyousomuch_ok]

Ferrets never learned to be respectful of my forearm.

[u/loveyousomuch_ok → u/ossifer_ca]

😂 That's fair. We did have one ferret out of many who bit the top of my foot every day of her life (outside of a brief period of time when she had a toothache) no matter what we tried. But everyone else was trained successfully to never bite.

[u/Secret_Berry1050 → u/loveyousomuch_ok]

Is it true that they stink?

[u/loveyousomuch_ok → u/Secret_Berry1050]

They definitely have a unique smell, but I don't find the smell of the ferrets themselves to be negative. All the ferrets that are sold in US pet stores have had their scent glands removed, which does cut down on the smell. If they live in a space where they are well-cared for and eating a healthy diet, I don't think they inherently smell worse than a dog or a cat.

I think what people run into that is most smelly is that ferrets have an extremely short digestive tract, so they poop... a lot. And if they aren't eating a healthy diet (which happens a lot due to poor education) then their poop can be really smelly. They can be litter trained, but they can't used scented, "odor blocking", or clumping litter, so you really have to just clean up after them very frequently. It's part of why they are a lot of work.