How to Train a Ferret to Come
Can you really train a ferret to come?
You may not have thought it possible, but you can train your ferret to come when called!
This “trick” is actually very handy and could help get your ferret out of harm’s way. What if your ferret got behind the stove, crawled into an opening in the back of a cabinet you didn’t know was there or got outside? What would you do?
If you could train him to come when called it would save a lot of time and anxiety.
However, as you know, ferrets are not like dogs. You can’t expect a ferret to just come to you when you call his name just because you want him to. He has to have a really good reason. Unlike dogs, ferrets are not motivated by praise, attention and the desire to please you. A ferret is only interested in one thing–a tasty treat.
This treat has two purposes. First, it serves as an enticement to get your ferret to do something–such as come when called. Second, it is used as a reward EVERY TIME he successfully does what you want him to do.
This treat must be something your ferret loves. Finding the perfect treat may not be easy. You may need to try different things if your ferret is picky. You want to make sure the treat is good for your ferret. He may love fruit, but that is not something you want to give your ferret. For more information on foods to avoid see What Not to Feed a Ferret.
High protein foods such as eggs, fish, poultry and beef are the best treats for ferrets. If you don’t want to cut up pieces of meat, freeze-dried treats are healthy protein-packed options. Another convenient and healthy treat is salmon oil. Every ferret I have ever had loved these vitamin treats! I put a tiny bit on my finger and they eagerly lick it off.
Whatever treat you and your ferret choose, be sure to pay attention to portion sizes. Each treat has a recommended daily portion size–whether it is chicken or a vitamin supplement. Divide the daily portion into lots of small rewards.
How to Train a Ferret to Come
When you have found the perfect treat to use to train your ferret to come, the next step is to prepare the training target stick. This target stick used to train your ferret to come is actually a very long-handled spoon.
You can make this long-handled spoon in a few minutes. All you need is a plastic spoon, a wooden dowel or other stick that is about 3 feet long and some duct tape or masking tape.
Simply tape the spoon to the end of dowel or stick. There you have it–a long-handled spoon! Now you are ready to train your ferret to come when called!
There are 3 Steps to Start Training Your Ferret to Come
- Put the treat on the target stick and let your ferret smell it.
- Call your ferret while luring her to the treat.
- Give your ferret the treat when she reaches the target stick.
Grab a Partner
It’s easier if you have another person helping. If you don’t have someone to help, you can do it by yourself. I will instruct you how to train your ferret to come with a partner first.
Both people should sit on the floor about 2 feet apart. One person holds the ferret and the other person holds the target stick with the treat on the spoon. I recommend that the person with the most contact with the ferret (or the person the ferret responds to better) be the one with the target stick for the first few sessions.
The person with the target stick reaches it out and holds the treat under the ferret’s nose and calls her by name and tells her to come (“Panda Come!”). Use an assertive, but cheerful voice. Be sure to give the command the same way every time.
The person holding the ferret then releases her, making sure she is focused on the treat as you slowly pull the spoon back toward yourself while constantly repeating the command.
When you have pulled the target stick back to you and she reaches it, let her have a lick of the treat or a tiny piece, and give her plenty of praise. Repeat this training several times in a row. Don’t practice training your ferret to come too many times, however. Keep the sessions to 5 minutes or less. Ferrets have a short attention span. You don’t want her to get bored and lose interest. Plus, you don’t want to give her too many treats.
Practice, Practice, Practice
You should practice training your ferret to come the same way, daily–several sessions daily is best. It may seem like a lot, but you should be spending quality time with your ferret every day anyway, so just make this part of your interaction. When she is consistently following the training stick and coming to you when called, increase the distance about 6 inches. When she consistently comes to you at this distance, increase it another 6 inches. Don’t try to increase the distance too fast. It’s important for your ferret not to realize that she has to go farther for her treat. Be sure to give your ferret a small piece or lick of the treat every time she succeeds to keep her interested while she is learning.
When you get to a distance that is longer than the stick, you still put the spoon under her nose, but then back up to the required distance while cheerfully telling her to come. When you get to a distance of about 10 feet (may take a month or more of daily practice), you should be able to stop putting the target stick under her nose. You can then stand with the training stick a foot or so away from your ferret when you call her. When she gets this down, it’s time to remove the stick!
Now she should come when you call her, without enticement! When she is coming when called consistently, you can then stop giving her a treat every time. You can then giver her intermittent rewards–every 2 or 3 times she comes when you call her. It is not recommended that you stop rewarding her entirely. Remember, ferrets are motivated by tasty tidbits, not by praise or the desire to please you!
How to Train a Ferret to Come without a Partner
If you don’t have someone who will commit to daily training sessions with you, you can replace the other person with a ferret leash and harness. The leash keeps her from wandering away. You can then direct your ferret toward the training target. When you put the spoon under her nose, tell her to come while gently pulling on the leash so she follows the stick. The remainder of the training is the same process as with a partner. When she’s coming consistently when called, you can remove the leash!
Frequency, consistency and patience are the keys to successfully training your ferret to come.
Even after you have successfully trained your ferret to come, you still need to practice–the more, the better. Once a day or every few days is optimal to keep your ferret trained. If you wait too long between training sessions, you may need to revert to previous training steps until she remembers. If you don’t use it, your ferret will lose it!
Click on the links above for great deals on ferret training supplies!
For more info on training your ferret, see How to Stop Ferret Biting and How to Train Your Ferret to Use a Litter Box.
Your comments are welcome.
They are cute little guys, I had friends that used to have ferrets as pets. They would run around the house just like any other family pet lol
Hi Laurie,
Thanks for stopping by!
I have never taught it before but this is really useful. My friend has ferret and her ferret just love eggs. I will suggest her to use eggs as reward so I hope her ferret learn coming.
Hi Furkan,
Yes, you can use eggs to train a ferret to come, but eggs are really messy unless they are hard boiled!!!!
I never knew that ferrets were capable of learning tricks! Teaching them how to come is definitely practical, but can you teach them other tricks as well?
Hi Anna,
Thanks for visiting. Well, ferrets are more like cats than dogs. Some ferrets respond better to training than others. They are smart and do learn. I will be writing about other training techniques and topics in future posts–stop by often!
Very insightful information. I do not have a ferret but this information would definitely help. My cousin actually has one so I will direct her to your site. I honestly did not really know they could be trained.
Thanks for stopping by, Rob.
Many people don’t know that ferrets can be trained. Thanks for telling your cousin about my site. I hope she will find some helpful info.
I had no idea you could train a ferret. I had a friend who had one and it did anything it wanted without regard to its owner. Very good information here. I enjoyed reading this and will let other people know about ferretlover.
Hi Lolita
Well, ferrets pretty much do anything they can get away with! But you can train a ferret to come, if you both work on it. Thanks for sharing the info!
This site would be an excellent find for someone who just got a ferret and had absolutely no idea what to do. It would be a life saver for sure. What a great niche site! Your conversational tone is a blessing as well. Easy reading. Thanks for sharing this!
Thanks, Alan! Please pass it on to any ferret lovers you know!
This is so awesome! The target stick looks hilarious with the spoon but it’s effective like you explain it in this post. Also do they sell target sticks in different sizes or do you absolutely need to make one yourself? What else can you use a target stick for?
Thanks for your comment and question, Vanessa.You can use anything long, light and narrow for a target stick. A broom handle, a yard stick…I haven’t seen any actually sold. I don’t think many ferret parents are teaching their ferrets to come yet. When enough people are interested, someone will come up with a target stick to sell!
What a great way to train your ferret to come. I’m bookmarking this so I can find it again. Ferrets always seem so willful, I didn’t think that it was possible to train them to come when called. Do you have other tricks to share?
Thanks Marion!
Yes, ferrets do have their their own ideas about what they will do. That’s why training a ferret is based on a worthy reward (worthy in their eyes!). And it does take time, patience and lots of continued practice. I am looking into sharing some other useful “tricks” in the future. If you are interested, I have also written an article on “How to train your ferret to use a litter box” as well as other “How to’s”
My ferret will come when lured with a treat but he will not come without one pls help!
Hi Maya,
Thanks for reaching out. You may need to keep practicing with the treat a while longer. You are using the long-handled spoon, I assume. You can also make the distance longer and longer before removing the treat.
Great idea. I just wonder how effective this would be with multiple ferrets? Just the training portion would be a nightmare with my whole collection of play-weasels all getting the goody before the “woozel-in-training” could even figure out what’s going on.
Please, may I make a suggestion? For multiple ferrets, consider “squeak training.” Having your woozel come when his/her name is called would be great….probably the ultimate ferret trick for some folks. However, as I mentioned before, probably the most challenging training process due to every other ferret’s natural NEED to get the goody, and….well, their possible difficulty in differentiating between the sounds of each name being called. That sounds like “ultimate trick” if you can get them on-board. But squeak training (with goodies as you mentioned) is ultra fast and easy. It comes in handy when we collect them at night for “night-night time” and one or two are holed up somewhere and we can’t find them. When they hear the squeak toy (which we keep in the same drawer with their goodies), they’ll almost leave their hide behind trying to get to us!
Thank you for the wonderful website and tips.
Hi Randall,
Thanks for your suggestion and comments! It would be quite entertaining to watch someone trying to train one ferret with a bunch of others running around! This method is definitely for 1 ferret at a time! I agree that the squeak method works well for some ferrets. One of my ferrets, Panda, absolutely went nuts when some of her toys were squeaked! Other ferrets don’t seem to care. The reason for this method of training your ferret to come is that you may not always have a squeaky toy nearby. If your ferret comes when called by name, you don’t have to search for a squeaky toy if she got out and is running down the street!