I felt inspired, to start this thread, by Forum contributor Skunkee's avatar of a skunk - one of nature's prettiest animals IMHO.
I recently watched a programme edition of the series 'Mythbusters' in which a team of experts try to either prove or disprove the truth of various urban myths or beliefs. In this particular case they were experimenting with various 'traditional' methods of removing skunk odour, but the problem was in getting a skunk to spray them. They tried everything from caging, yelling, poking, etc to annoy their captive skunks, but the little animals just ignored their efforts. Eventually after a lot of attempts they managed to get a skunk to spray, and tried the various cures, but what they mainly seemed to prove was that skunks are placid creatures which are not easilly riled!
A few years ago, I was staying at 'The Phantom Ranch' which is located at the bottom of the Grand Canyon, and while we were eating our evening meal, in walked a skunk. It wandered around the room and under the tables looking for anything edible, and after about five minutes wandered out again. I asked the guy in charge of the Ranch if they weren't worried about it spraying guests, and he said "we don't bother it, and it don't bother us".
Does anyone else have any experiences of undeserved animal reputations?

I just want to say...sniff...thank you. You like me...you really like me!
I have to admit that even though I obviously appreciate the beauty of a skunk, their powerful odour frightens me away. I remember years ago when my husband and I were tent camping, a skunk and a pair of raccoons entered our campsite at the same time and it got a little heated out there. I lay there, by this point desperately needing to relieve myself, praying that the skunk wouldn't spray. It didn't, but neither did it give ground and run from the raccoons.
I do remember reading somewhere that skunks don't like to spray, and if I think about it, although I know several dogs who have been sprayed, I can only think of one person who can make the same claim, and I think that had something to do with a mother and babies.

Just as a point of interest, a skunk makes a noise very like a cat's miaow.

I agree, a skunk is not likely to spray. However, if you have one living under your porch, you don't really want to take the chance.
I've never known a person to be sprayed by a skunk, nor 'needled' by a porcupine. Dogs, however, are another matter.

The only effective way to get the smell out is to put tomato juice on it.
My dog once caught a skunk and got sprayed and we washed him with a big can of tomato juice and it worked like a charm! We'd read it in some story.

The main worry with skunks is that they may carry rabies, not that they might spray. I was taught to be very careful about any small mammal like that in the woods in California and Oregon.

My friend's dog recently was sprayed by a skunk, and she found the best thing for getting rid of the smell was vanilla extract - but the real kind, not the imitation.

This reminds me of a story...when I lived in California for five years, Maynooth and I were out driving in a canyon one day and I said to him "You know, in all the years I have lived here, I've never yet smelled a skunk" and then we went around a bend and PHEWWWWW!!! Someone had hit one. A smell never to be forgotten and unlike any other I've ever come across.

They love the climate in Oregon apparently, they were all over the countryside when I was a kid.

Well, I live with an animal with an undeserved reputation. His name is Samurai and he's a domestic ferret and close relative to the skunks already being discussed. I find the reputation of ferrets varies widely between countries, as in the UK domestic ferrets are still often considered working animals, in New Zealand they are feral pests and in the US they are almost exclusively pets.

In America, the California Fish and Games dept's unreasonable grasping to keep ferrets on the wild animal list and various city health depts across the country making them illegal in city limits has not helped. The rules are baseless and foolish, discriminatory and undeserved.

People cite one or two cases where ferrets seriously injured (cosmetically, mostly) children to prove how they are vicious and should not be kept as pets, never seeming to notice that in every case where a child has been injured by a ferret the parents have been guilty of neglect, leaving an infant alone with a family pet for extended periods of time, and also seeming to gloss over the fact that the President of the Journal for American Veterinary Medicine has publicly stated that domestic dogs are the #1 health risk for children under 12 in the US, dogs have killed children AND adults, and people are injured by them daily, yet dogs are NOT considered too dangerous to have as pets.

Some people then go on to say that the only reason the numbers of people seriously injured by ferrets is so low in comparison to dogs is that there are so few ferrets as pets in the US, not seeming to notice that currently ferrets are the third most popular pet in the US, and while numbers are still lower than cats and dogs the proportion of children injured to numbers of pet ferrets is still MUCH lower.

There is also the persistent idea that ferrets are a serious rabies threat, never mind that collected data shows that pet dogs are far more likely to be infected with rabies, and there have been almost no ferrets reported with rabies at all in the history of reporting rabies, and also that the CDC has approved a reliable ferret rabies vaccine and recommended adopting the same 10 day quarantine for ferrets as for pet cats and dogs. Yet there are still some states in which a ferret bite of ANY kind can result in the ferret summarily losing their heads for testing, EVEN IF the owner can prove that the ferret has been vaccinated against rabies. Imagine someone wanting to do that to your pet.

Understand I'm not villifying dogs. I have a dog of my own as well as my ferret. I'm simply interested in comparitive numbers. The data shows that ferrets are a safe pet and my own experience (and that of MANY people) shows that they are also friendly, lovable, intelligent and highly entertaining. In short, I simply don't see why ANYone could think badly of them, except that I know a number of people who don't like them for the sole reason that they resemble weasles, or worse, rats. (And another thing, I'm pretty tired of people thinking they're rodents. No sir, they eat rodents.)

Great that you brought ferrets into the discussion Lothruin. Back in my teens I used to breed them, and had a lot of fun playing with them. I kept both types, the creamy white ones and the polecats. My two favourites were a big, white male (called a dog ferret, here in UK), and an even bigger male polecat. These two, who were called Ragnar and Ferd, loved a 'rough and tumble' fight, though never ever hurt each other. With my friends I used to take them out in the countryside in winter, and tread long channels in the deep snow. we then put the ferrets into opposite ends of these channels and watched them bound along at high speed till they met in the middle. Neither would give way, and they displayed absolute 'joy' at the opportunity to fight their way through.Delightful animals indeed!
Back to skunks - A few years ago I spent some time in Oklahoma, and their powerful odour was very common while driving there, presumably created by a very near miss or even a hit by a motor vehicle. You can't really blame the skunks for taking umbrage against fast cars though, can you?

Jessica Simpson has the undeserved reputation of being talented.

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Jessica Simpson has the undeserved reputation of being talented.

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ROFLMAO - I can think of a few more names to add to that list!

'Cheeta' was gay.

In Mia Farrow's autobiogaphy, "What Falls Away", she tells the story of how difficult it was for her mother (Maureen O'Sullivan) to play 'Jane' opposite Johnny Weismuller's 'Tarzan' in the series of jungle films made in the 1940s. Accoding to O'Sullivan, Cheeta resented anyone who got too close to Weismuller, and she endured many severe bites from the chimp who she referred to as, 'that damn animal."

So, Cheeta was not the cute, playful, cuddly little scamp the films would have us believe. He was an anti-feminist homosexual muscle queen with an over-active mandible.

Uh... so while I have a lot to say about that, a lot of it would be littered with profanity, so I won't. I'll just point out that it's fairly impossible for inter-species relations to be homosexual, heterosexual, or anything else. Primates, while they do have homosexual sex, aren't one of the other. Primates only do it cos they're bored.

Nasty Generalisation - Bulldogs are hard-asses. We've has three or four and they've been totally soft; that is to say, none of them have ever shown any aggression to anyone. But they do scare burglars off pretty well.

Well, Mia, Johnnie and especially Maureen would differ with you.

http://www1.minn.net/%7Edavefury/maureen.html

From paragraph 13:

"I had trouble with Cheetah, every Cheetah. Naturally, there was more than one during those nine years. They were jealous of me and if I stood near Johnny they tried to bite me. When you see photographs of Johnny and me with "Boy" (John Sheffield) and Cheetah, you will always see the chimp next to Johnny and far from me. Often a wire was attached to the monkey's leg to keep her from me and still in the picture. Johnny liked practical jokes such as giving me a birthday cake that blew up when I tried to cut it! Stage chemistry is an interesting thing. Johnny and I were very different, but on camera something must have been right."

Ferrets are high energy animals. They're good for small apartments, but not so good for tight budgets and low-energy people.

They live a lot less long than a cat or dog, and they are prone to ferret-specific cancers, just like cats and dogs, but since they live short lives, these diseases can seem to come almost on top of each other, rather than spread out over one or two decades. They also require shots for Canine Distemper and rabies, every year, just like dogs. And, if you live in a prone area, fleas and ticks can be a concern, as well as heartworm, and if you plan on taking your ferret for a walk (which many people do) you'll need to take precautions against those things.

The fact is, because large chain pet stores lump ferrets in with the "small mammals" and sell them in the stores (which they don't generally do with dogs and cats), people seem to think that ferrets are more similar to rats and mice in their care requirements, when in reality they are much closer to dogs and cats. They aren't really cage animals, they prefer the run of the house, like dogs and cats. They can be litter trained. They require high quality meat-based foods and good vet care. (Most people don't take their rats and mice on regular vet visits. Most people DO take their dogs and cats on regular visits. This is a must with ferrets.) They're intelligent and loyal like dogs, but clever and mischevious like cats.

In general, if you don't think you have the time, energy or budget for a small dog or cat, a ferret is not the pet for you. The care, expense and energy they require is the match of a dog or cat when considered over a lifetime, and with ferrets, sometimes it's even more than dogs and cats. If you get a ferret thinking that vet visits can be kept to a minimum, that shots are unneeded, that it will be happy to play by itself... You'll have a very sad, very sick ferret.

However, you MIGHT find a good match for your lifestyle by adopting a ferret from a local shelter. If you let them know you're looking for an older but healthy ferret, they might be able to match you with one. As ferrets stay in shelters the shelter operators and volunteers usually get a good sense of their personalities and will be able to match you with one who is more laid back and lovey, less energetic, etc.

Oh, and you have to proof your home almost exactly as you would have to if you had a toddler. You'd be surprised, trust me. I've come into a room to see one of my ferrets pushing things off a shelf 6 feet up in the air with the others all waiting at the bottom to see what came over the edge. I still have no idea how she got up there. You have to be careful where you step and especially where you sit because one false move means crushed ferret. They like to crawl under and then INTO couches and chairs, and they're constantly under foot, but unlike cats and dogs who might be right at your heels all the time, you are more likely to put your foot right on top of a ferret rather than accidentally kick them, so you learn to walk with a weird sort of shuffle step that never quite lifts your feet from the ground, and you stop wearing shoes while in the house so you can feel what's under your feet, and you start subconsciously finding all the ferrets before you sit down, just so you know there isn't one under you, curled in the blanket on the sofa or hiding under a cushion.

They're terrific companions, but they are a LOT of work.

Well, I kinda guessed as much. But hoped it wouldn't be like letting otters loose. I've handled some ferrets a few times and had thought about them again now. I take my pets very seriously and take better care of them than I do myself so this will require some more research.

No matter what I do I will be looking at shelter and rescue animals.

This site was recommended to me and here is the ferret listing:

Ferrets at www.petfinders.com

Lists animals all over Canada and the U.S. who need homes.

There is a hamster in Mississauga that I might give a home too while I do my research.

I do strongly recommend doing more research, and I by no means mean to talk you out of getting a ferret. I love my ferrets. But coming back to the undeserved reputations aspect... a lot of people totally misunderstand just what kind of animal a ferret really is, and that is why ferret shelters are so common and so overburdened. People buy ferrets because they are cute, cudly and smart, and then realize that they aren't an animal you can just put in a cage and gawk at. They require a lot of attention, affection, expense sometimes, energy always and diligence most of all. But all that adds to them being an extremely rewarding companion if they suit your personality.

I will add though, also, that if you are the type who really loves your pets as family, like I do... ferrets might not be the best choice. I have had 8 ferrets over the last 10 years, 6 of them at the same time for a short while. Samurai is all I have left now. I lost one ferret to old age. But I lost 6 ferrets from one disease or another, at as old as 6 years to as young as 2. My heart got broken over and over again, and now, my big boy Samurai is my last ferret. I have a dog too, now. She's young and I will have both of them for several years, as long as they both stay healthy and away from accidents. Then my puppy Mira will be a grown dog, and more long-lived than any of my ferrets have been, and I hope I can fend off that misery of loss for a while. Still, I will always say it was worth it. It just didn't seem so at the time. Be careful. They steal little pieces of your heart and hide them under the furniture, and you may not find them again until spring cleaning.

I know that makes it seem like ferrets are, in general, more prone to illness than dogs or cats, but the numbers can be misconstrued. They're not as long-lived as either dogs or cats, so their illnesses come sooner, take them sooner, and some illnesses can be the catalyst of others, just like in dogs and cats. Plus, bad breeding practices in what are the ferret equivalent of puppy mills (indeed, one major ferret breeder IS ALSO a puppy mill...) have created a large percentage of genetic "sports" that are also more likely to have congenital defects effecting all parts of health, as well as predispositions to certain ailments, like lymphomas, etc. Even getting an animal from a ferret shelter will most likely result in an animal from one of these large and largely disreputable breeders, since the pet store sales of ferrets (in the US at least, and I believe Canada is very much the same) are almost entirely supplied by three or four major breeding farms. Just some more things to watch out for.

Ferrets in my experience can get out of or into almost anything, and few holes are too small for them to exit or enter. They can climb, jump, run fast and squirm through the tightest gaps. They are also completely fearless, and will give way to nothing. I recall one of mine once escaping, and almost immediately going for a full grown alsation dog. It had its teeth in the dog's neck fur and wouldn't let go in spite of the dog's furious shaking. Neither dog nor ferret suffered any injury, and I reckon the dog learned to respect these plucky animals.
I can't add anything to Lothruin's excellent advice, except to say whatever enclosure you keep ferrets in, make sure its very robust.