Rebecca, during the FML 10th anniversary celebration days Susie down in
Florida showed me a great trick she was using on a female who had been
punished by people using hands. She got either thick clothes or chamois
(I can't recall which but I think it was chamois) and she draped them
over her hands. Then the ferret could feel hands but not see them and in
this way she was slowly progressing toward toward the next step. It was
a trick that worked very well and I thought that it might interest you
even if it does stray a bit from what you were discussing.
I think that your postulation on why the limited use of gloves helped
makes sense for the past one you mentioned and that situation.
Cardiomyopathy:
Well, the irreversible nature of death as an alternative kind of gets
noticed more by anyone when the animals who are treated so often have
a half year to a year and a half of extra life when treated. That is
like 5 to 15 years for a human. Some do better than that.
Yes, not treating it also impacts on the quality of life. If there is
cardiac insufficiency other organs can be damaged so the ferret may also
wind up with kidney disease, or liver disease, or some other problem
which could have been avoided or delayed.
If there is a lot of fluid build up then a ferret may feel like he or she
is being smothered, or like there is a weight in the abdomen.
Energy will go away.
With some variants like with ventricular bigemini the ferret may faint
repeatedly.
We found with one (and have since heard this in relation to others) that
inability to hold weight can arise with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and
that the loss stops once treated.
One thing that we learned with our first individual is that while Digoxin
scares some vets, given when needed it gives a long amount of very good
time.
I can't imagine not treating our's when they have cardiomyopathy; it so
positively turns their lives around for a decent chunk of time.
Information on treating cardiomyopathy can be found at:
http://www.smartgroups.com/vault/ferrethealth/cardiomyopathy.txthttp://www.miamiferret.org/fhc/cardiomyopathy.htmhttp://www.miamiferret.org/fhc/cardio.htmhttp://home.att.net/~hhoefer/ferret_heart.htmhttp://www.vetheart.com/diseases.htmlhttp://fhl.sonic-weasel.org/http://listserv.cuny.edu/archives/ferret-search.html
maybe some further links at http://www.ferretcongress.org
Consultants to help your vet:
http://www.vetheart.com/
[Posted in FML issue 4104]
