It has been a long 6 months but finally there is light at the end of the
tunnel for four ferrets that came into my life this past April.
 
Some of you may remember me posting about a woman who needed to find new
accommodations for herself and her four ferrets.  I had the pleasure of
looking after them for over 3 months.
 
By the second month, she had surrendered one of the males as he was adrenal
and she was ready to euthanize him for lack of funds.  Since then this male
has had adrenal surgery and is a beautiful mahogany coloured ferret with
long luscious fur.
 
By the end of the third month, she surrendered the oldest female who had
a broken tail, and hip problems.  This little girl of 6 is now having
additional problems with a large lump showing up under her jaw.  After
speaking with Dr. Williams, it is possible that it is related to her
salivary gland.  No medication has shown any signs of reducing the size,
so this new info is priceless.
 
The two surrenders left two others still under this woman's care: a deaf
male who was bouncy and relatively healthy, and a female who was an
unpredictable biter.  I was very worried about this little girl but felt
that she would eventually be surrendered, or God forbid, sold, shortly down
the road.  About 2 weeks ago, our vigilant ferret ad spotter found this
woman's ad with this little female being advertised for sale.  I called her
up and spoke with her but she was adamant about getting a return on her
investment.  Besides, she had just gotten a new kitten and this female kept
attacking the kitten.  She no longer wanted this ferret and selling her
seemed the best idea.  She suggested that I buy her and then surrender her
to the shelter.  I told her this is not how shelters work and not how I
work.  I gritted my teeth and hoped for the best as I told her good luck
on the sale of the ferret, hoping beyond all hopes that no one would want
a biting ferret.
 
I got a call the afternoon before we were to fly out to the Toronto
symposium.  She was now willing to sell both the ferrets to me so that I
could surrender them to the ferret shelter.  The situation held promise:
now she was willing to let them both go.  This was a step in the right
direction.  I crossed my fingers and once again told her I could not do
that.  I forwarded the call to the shelter boss.
 
That night, as I was setting up our sick ferrets at the temporary foster
home, I got the news... this woman, after all this time, had finally agreed
to surrender the last two to our shelter.  My heart leapt.  I jumped for
joy.  Patience has finally paid off.  I ran home to tell hubby who upon
hearing the news of the babies "coming home", cried.  Our sitter wasn't
prepared for two more, but after some creative dividing, we managed to work
everything out.  (Hey, when you have 13 what's 2 more!) They would however,
arrive when we were in Toronto.  We crossed our fingers that nothing would
go wrong in the meantime.
 
The shelter volunteer who ended up getting the papers signed and picking up
the last two told me later that she had some work on her hands.  It seemed
that this woman had second thoughts about relinquishing the deaf one.
Finally she was convinced it was for the best.
 
The babies are here now and I am so thankful that they are with us.  Our
babysitter had a few touch and go days but eventually won the biter over.
We know we have a little work on our hands to get her back to the way she
was when she was here before and to get her to trust more people more
often, but we don't mind one bit...
 
The babies are now all home...
 
Betty and Her Blur O'Fur
For the love of ferrets....
[Posted in FML issue 3180]