Ferrets are tactical in some ways, NOT tactical in others.
They have no sense of "defend territory" and will eagerly greet and try and play with whoever or whatever walks in.
On the plus side, the little squirts WILL sometimes try to counter-attack whatever's attacking you. Human, dog, whatever. There's at least one recorded case of a one-pound ferret successfully defending her human owner from an aggressive 120lb dog. And yes, the ferret "won" - by latching onto the dog's nose and refusing to let go! The dog's owner grabbed the dog, the lady held the ferret, and after some "tug of weasel" ended up holding her ferret, which was happily chewing on half a dog nose
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On a more serious note: if a dog is trotting or bounding towards you, how do know if it's play or assault?
The best indicator isn't the tail - a lot of dogs are HAPPY they're gonna chew on your butt! No, watch the tongue. If it's "flapping around loose" in what we see as a "happy expression", that's a good sign. He's using it for cooling of course, and
he doesn't plan on biting anybody so he leaves it flapping loose! An aggressive dog retracts the tongue as prep for using his teeth as weapons and/or growling.
I believe dogs recognize this among each other, and I've been known to approach strange dogs with MY tongue hanging loose to convey the same impression. It looks stupid, but it works - in doggy body language, all humans look like we're approaching in "bite mode". This may be why gentle words seem to help - the dogs aren't reacting to the sounds, they're seeing our tongues as we talk and this, to them, is reassuring.
I'd have to work with dogs daily in a pound or something to really test this theory. But it makes sense.
). But, when he hears something strange while I'm around, he'll bark a couple of times & look at me like "Come on, go check it out"...
