In the United States, ferrets were relatively rare pets until the 1980s. Dr. Wendy Winstead, a veterinarian, sold ferrets to celebrities including Dick Smothers and David Carradine while making television appearances with ferrets in the 1980s, writing books and promoting them until her death in the 1990s from cancer. A government study by the California State Bird and Mammal Conservation Program found that by 1996, approximately 800,000 or so domestic ferrets were likely being kept as pets in the United States.
Ferrets spend 14 to 18 hours a day sleeping and are naturally crepuscular. They usually sleep in two to six hour periods. Though ferrets sleep more than most other domesticated animals, they are very active when awake and will seek to be released from their cage to get exercise and satisfy their abundant curiosity daily.
Ferret dragging off toy to hide
Ferrets are energetic, curious, interested in their surroundings, and often actively solicit play with humans, having a repertoire of behaviors both endearing and difficult for some human owners. Play for a ferret will often involve hide-and-seek games, or some form of predator and prey game in which either the human attempts to catch the ferret or the ferret to catch the human. They also have a strong nesting instinct and will repeatedly carry small objects or food to secluded locations. Ferrets will seemingly form attachments to certain objects and will repeatedly seek out and "steal" the same object and bring it to their hiding place.
A ferret in a War Dance jump
When ferrets are excited, they may perform a routine commonly referred to as the weasel war dance, a frenzied series of sideways hops. This is often accompanied by a soft clucking noise, commonly referred to as dooking. It is often an invitation to play or an expression of happy excitement and is not threatening. The ferret's posture may become rigid with wide open jaws, momentary eye contact followed by thrashing or turning of the head from side to side, arching the back, piloerection (goosebumps), and hopping to the side or backwards while facing the intended playmate. This is often accompanied by an excited panting sound that may sound like a hiss. Often, this behavior will break into a game of chase, pounce and wrestle. Ferrets in war dances are very accident prone, often hopping into obstacles or tripping over their own feet.
Ferrets tend to nip as kits (juveniles). Nipping is the act of biting in a playful manner representative of mock fighting and sparring; young ferrets are also more prone to chewing and teething, and have a tendency to bite harder. Their teeth are very sharp, but ferrets naturally have very tough skin, so they get used to play biting each other without doing injury. When on the receiving end of a play bite, a ferret will sometimes let out a high-pitched squeal or hiss to signify its annoyance or submission. Kits usually need to be taught to be more gentle with humans than they are with each other. Older ferrets tend to chew far less frequently and, when trained correctly, almost never nip a human hand or, only do so very gently. However, ferrets that have been abused or are in extreme pain may bite a human, and are capable of strong bites which break through the skin.
As with cats, ferrets can use a litter box with training, but they are not always completely litter box trainable. Their instinct is to spread their waste in order to scent mark a wider foraging territory for themselves, but they will return to a used spot and "refreshen" it; thus, multiple litter boxes may be necessary, and all litter areas should be cleaned frequently.