Bob wrote:
>Oh, and I also want to spread anarchy
 
What?  You'll be handing out ferrets?  ;-)  (Joke, folks...)
 
Glueball loves to batter the Weezlwatchers and she's gotten to the point
where she lie down and on the bottom of the gate can do 4 beats to the
measure with one hand and three with the other, then four and four, then
three and four, then...
 
>What IS that panting thing??
 
The panting "Heh-heh-heh" done during play?  Appears to be laughter from
context and sound.  Wouldn't be a surprise if it is, some sounds are very,
very old and more widely spread than that, also, ferrets do learn from us
so if it's a primate thing it still could be picked up that way.  There are
some interesting studies on sound patterns and seeing how widely they are
used for similar situations; some sound patterns are found in similar
situation in reptiles and birds as well as in humans from something I read
a good while ago (maybe a decade?  and have largely forgotten.  This won't
be a surprise if you think of crying or whimpering noises, hisses, growling
sounds, comfy purry sounds like a parent crooning to a baby...
 
>Aren't we all here for the greater good of the ferrets??  Stop being such
>big babies & arguing all the time.  You can deal with it.  The fuzzies
>can not!  If someone's feelings get hurt, tough!!
 
I have to partly disagree.  Some (actually a good number) of the people
here who have recently disagreed with some individuals, BTW, are ones who
donate huge amounts of time and money to helping improve situations for
ferrets.  There IS room for such polite disagreement, but there is NOT
room for being nasty or picking fights.  Problems arise sometimes with
individuals who straddle the line between the two, but we're only human
here, and there's nothing wrong with folks then writing that they disagree.
Heck, when those people are ones who donate so much to help ferrets there's
nothing lost to their actions, either; they are merely speaking their
pieces about something which hits home.  I think the mutual support which
is given by so many productive ferret-helping souls toward protecting the
feelings of others who also help ferrets so very much is a strength and
does help the greater good of ferrets because it brings the community
closer.
 
Have to admit, though, that I'd like to see a greater number of posts from
people who are discovering useful things to help others, but post types
seem to often go in cycles and there will be more of those again, too,
soon enough.
[Posted in FML issue 3157]