and my now ex-wife and i freaked out our cats by tying a slightly deflated -- but still slightly airborne -- balloon to them. out of four cats, all four flipped out and ran and hid somewhere once the big scary balloon "attacked" them. we tied the same balloon to the ferret and he took two steps, then got mad at this thing following him around and jumped up, tackled the balloon and bit it like that dog did. the balloon popped and the ferret wiggled out of the ribbon and walked away....