Ferrets: Why do you put up with the smell from ferrets?

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Why do you put up with the smell from ferrets?

Removal of the ferret's glands is not permissable in the UK.

By Neil McIntosh

Thursday, 05 January 2012

I am an American living in Dorset and cannot understand why you guys put up with the horrific smell from ferrets. It is easily sorted back home.

FERRETS
Neil McIntosh
Having broken my nose once too often, it really doesn’t bother me but I have seen plenty of pet owners slide away from a ferret box in the waiting room with their scarves over their faces.

The culprit, of course, is the ferret’s anal glands, which produce a particularly pungent odour, which some find quite nauseating.

It is legal in your country of birth to have these glands surgically removed but this procedure (quite rightly, in my opinion) is viewed as an unnecessary mutilation in the UK and so is not permissible here.

Incidentally, it is an operation that I have to do quite often in dogs because of infected or impacted glands but here they are being removed on medical grounds and not just because of your sensitive olfactory system.