You'd think that after being owned by these fuzzbutts for so many years
that I could tell the difference between the sleep of the dead and a dead
ferret.  But alas, all my years of seeing both, still sends me into a
panic.
 
But thank goodness for body heat.... a dead ferret will not exude body heat
where as the ferret who performs the sleep of the dead, will be warm and
toasty.
 
I always look for the rise and fall of the chest... but sometimes, their
breathing is so sloooooooow, that it seems to take forever to see any
actual movement.
 
I have picked up Taero (my deepest dead sleeper) only to find that he flops
in my arms... the poor baby, getting bounced this way and that.... thank
goodness he hasn't suffered any ill effects like human babies can.  It is
always when I haven't seen him in awhile that I get worried and wonder if
he is okay.  It is then that I find him in this state of deep, deeeeep,
sleep.  I do the linatone thing.  The raisen thing....nothing happens, and
nothing wakes him.  Then when I feel my heart go into my throat, then he
wakes up and wonders what in Blue Blazes I am doing to him.
 
Mushu is the other that does this but she is also deaf, so I hate to
startle her.  Usually she doesn't sleep so deeply, but every now and again
she does.
 
Yup, still a shock, even after all these years.  I don't think I will ever
get use to it.... just more aware of it.
 
Betty and Her Blur O'Fur
For the Love of Ferrets...
[Posted in FML issue 3076]