The ferrets ​a​rrived in ​cages and strollers, cradled in arms and nuzzled on necks. ​With their humans​, they descended on an Ohio exposition center on Saturday to celebrate the finer qualities of one of America’s more divisive pets.

“Ferret people, we are a lot,” said Michele Paulhus, who drove her ferrets from Massachusetts to the show in Columbus, Ohio. “You kind of have to be because they are freakish little animals.”

“But I don’t think we’re as bad as the reptile people,” said her friend Skyla Fay.

Here at the nation’s largest annual ferret show, the owners already know how their pets make you feel. Your uncle or your cousin or his roommate once had a ferret, and it chomped on toes and crawled up pant legs.

What these ferret aficionados want is for you to reconsider this slinky mammal. Yes, ferrets might smell like wet basement, and they might steal your TV remote, your car keys, or even your underwear. (The word ferret is derived from the Latin word for “little thief.”) But what pet, or human for that matter, doesn’t come with a few peculiarities?

“Raising a ferret is like raising a 2-year-old or a teenager,” said Scarlett Gray-Saling, who owns 85 of them. “The only difference is it’s legal to lock ferrets in a cage.”

Ms. Gray-Saling, a breeder who is 74, has been organizing this gathering, called the Ferret Buckeye Bash, for 25 years. In the past, more than 300 ferrets were registered to compete; this year, there were 101. Some of the events were designed to lure in the ferret-curious: races through plastic tubes, a parade with custom costumes and a challenge that involved ferrets wriggling to escape brown paper bags. There was a prize for the fattest specimen, awarded this year to an albino ferret named Ralphie who weighed 6 pounds 4 ounces.

But the main competition was more like the Westminster Kennel Club dog show: a high-stakes championship in which trained judges determined which ferret was the best of its kind. They awarded points for skeletal structure, muscle coverage, temperament and cleanliness.

“I like to be sure to look at their bottoms, as it does get dirty back there,” said Oden Curry, a 26-year-old judge with a ginger mustache and earrings made of mink jaw bones.

Mr. Curry stuck out in this crowd not for his accessories but for his youth. In the 1980s and ’90s, when ferrets saw a frenzy of interest, owners were mostly people around his age. Now, the remaining ferret shows in the United States are frequented by a tight-knit group of people in their 60s and 70s who are trying to keep a shrinking subculture alive.

Pam VanOverloop, 69, is known for importing European ferrets and mating her most “prolific” male, Sir Nicholas Nubbins. Michael Schell, 75, has a tricked-out room in his house for Jelly Bean, who was named Ferret of the Year in 2025. Mary Cruse, 75, arrived at the expo center with a rescue named Hammie, who once won a kissing competition. He smooched her face 90 times.

Only one founder of the American Ferret Association — a group whose mission is “to promote, protect, and provide for the domesticated ferret” — remains involved. Sally Heber, 65, asked her husband for a bunny for a wedding present in 1982. When he didn’t provide, she got a ferret from the classifieds, then proceeded to spend the next four decades building the association, which helped set breed standards for ferrets across the world.

“I bet he’s very sorry he didn’t get me that bunny,” she said.

Though there are no reliable national statistics on ferret ownership in the United States, there was broad agreement among people at the show that the world of domesticated weasels isn’t what it used to be.

A New York-based company called Marshall Farms now dominates sales of ferrets to pet stores across the country, while also making millions of dollars on animal testing. Ferrets, which have a similar respiratory structure to humans, have been used to develop treatments for influenza, cystic fibrosis, Covid-19 and other diseases.

“We understand that people may have different views about the use of animals in biomedical research, and we respect the seriousness of that discussion,” Marshall Farms said in a statement, adding that interest in ferrets is cyclical and is currently in a “growth phase.”

The cost of everything about ferret ownership, especially veterinary care, is rising, making it even harder for young people to get involved. Eliza Warner, a 20-year-old preschool teacher, said she wasn’t thinking about that when she wandered into a pet store and came out with a mischievous girl named Mouse.

Ms. Warner, who lives with her parents, said they were furious. That didn’t stop her from buying a second ferret the same week. Or four more within the year. She was also undeterred by the $800 vet bills.

“Girl, look around,” she said, pointing to her wet wipes, pee pads and crocheted beds. “I work, I sleep, I eat, I ferret.”

Though she is active in ferret communities on Discord and Reddit, she decided that this year, she would become a ferret-show girl. “I know that there are so many people out there who were just like me, a year ago: looking for something to love,” she said.

On Saturday afternoon, she held her ferrets Monkey and Merlin in her arms as three judges stood before a wall of ribbons and counted down from 10th place. Onlookers noticed that Jelly Bean, the reigning champ of the companion ferret class, had lost some of his fur, making way for a surprising upset. Best in Show went to ferret No. 703.

“That’s Hammie!” Ms. Cruse cried. “I can’t believe it!”

Despite being a kissing champion, Hammie had never before come close to winning it all. He’d been abandoned in the Indiana woods by his first owner and found by hikers who didn’t know what to feed him. They discovered he had a liking for ham.

He is Ms. Cruse’s 29th rescue ferret, and will be her last. Now that she is nearing her late 70s, she said, it is finally time to move on.

As she posed Hammie for photos beside a ribbon nearly three times his size, Merlin and Monkey were back in Ms. Warner’s playpen, where she pinned up their third- and eighth-place companion ferret ribbons.

The veteran ferret owners were watching the young woman. Ms. VanOverloop, the well-known breeder, wandered over and asked if she might be looking for a mentor.

Ms. Warner thought of her parents, and of all the people who continued to give ferrets a bad rap. Maybe she would become a breeder. Or a rescuer. Someone with a whole room dedicated to ferrets. The ferret voice of her generation.

But first, she needed to save enough money to afford her own place.