I was sitting at my desk yesterday when I heard a crash and looked over to see Liam (the younger of my two ferrets) on top of the shelf/drawer thing that I keep my music in/on. He’d just knocked my Alba high d onto the hardwood floor five feet down from where I’d stupidly left it (don’t worry, it lived! 
). I’ve been working on my high register reciently and I wonder if he was trying to tell me something.
I DID have a ferret that liked the tinwhistle and she’d come running whenever I played. And that was when I only had a really bad tourist trap whistle!
I had a ferret several years ago that had a somewhat similar response to my flute. I would put the flute together, set it down, and the only thing he did was sniff at it. Once I picked it up and began to play though, he would try to bite it. I would stop playing and place the flute in my lap…he would try to bite it…I even took it apart and put it back in the case…he still bit at it. I could never figure out if my playing was that bad (hopefully not) or if it just bothered him, but I learned to never leave my flute unattended if he was “out and about” in the house. My brother had a dog that would howl when he played the guitar, but his playing had no effect upon my two dogs. Perhaps it varies critter to critter. Maybe it was mere ferret curiosity…but if something similar happens again then the high pitches may just bother him.
Aparently, ferreters traditionally used whistles or similar instruments to call their ferrets when hunting. This may have been the inspiration for the Pied (sp?) Piper, though he led off rats (which ferrets like to eat) rather than ferrets with his music. Both my ferrets have tried to crawl into the bell of my saxophone. The urge to suddenly pick it up and play a low B flat is hard to resist.