Sad news; at the age of 11 years and 4 1/2 months old, dear Zeus
MellowFellow, the chocolate colored boy, happy-go-lucky and friendly to
every other ferret and person was found dead.  He had died unexpectedly
and peacefully in his sleep, not having shown any signs of age, stress
or disease, and even had been tested negative for ADV at the veterinary
hospital about six weeks before (on a general-testing run of all our
in-house ferrets five at a time to the animal hospital).  The vet said
his heart was slightly enlarged and he could have had a sudden heart
attack.
 
Almost 11 and a half years old, he played and gamboled with his
best-friend cagemates, Jazzmine Miss Boss and Zinc-a-Dinc-A-Zoo!, right
up to the very morning, and went to sleep in one of the brand new
specially made hammies, big, thick, soft, and wonderfully comfortable.
 
I hope his fleecy new cloudbed in the Ferret Heaven Summerlands is as
comfortable, for this was one bright little being who had only love and
friendship to give every creature.  His gentle, teddy-bear-lovable
presence will be much missed by many more than just us.  And now we must
keep careful watch over "Jazzy", too, for she's the same age as "Zoofy",
and even though she also knows he's gone, we expect she'll miss him just
the same.  and try to conduct her own version of house-searches for him
every day.  You see, we're also old.  And understand about forgetting
little things when you get older.  Especially when you expect someone
who's been with you for your entire life to still "be there"...somehow.
 
There's one picture of him (digitalized, we have many, many glossy photos
of dear old Zeus Mellowfellow) at the bottom of our web-page for the
Sanctuary that you can see him with Jazzmine Miss Boss and just the hint
of Zinc-A-Dinc-A-Zoo in the background, here...
http://www.angelfire.com/theforce/ferret_rescuer/index.html
[Posted in FML issue 4350]