Thurs 9 June on the way home from an early morning walk the unthinkable
happened - my 3 m.o.  albino, Allie McFerret, managed to escape through
an unseen hole in his new PakaPal, hit the sidewalk & dive into a small
hole - and was instantly GONE!  As I tried to catch him I fell over a
railing, slid down a steep sandy rock embankment & separated my shoulder.
This happened at 6am.  By 7 the temperature was already approaching 80.
 
Luckily, he crawled under large old quarried stone blocks originally used
for old canal locks & dam, now rearranged under a large old stone bridge.
There were ferret sized tunnels all over an area the size of baseball
field.  I spent 14 hrs down there in the 95 degree sun trying to find him
and coax him out with food, toys, calls, bedding, litter pan, etc.  My
parents & fiancee spent much of the day either with me, fetching things,
or making & posting flyers.  We recieved no support from the authorities
or animal services organizations.
 
By the end of the evening I was exhausted, battered & bruised from an
entire day sliding down sharp rock inclines while my shoulder was
immobilized in a sling.  We knew the emergency clinic closed at 8pm so
since the pain was unbearable we knew I needed to see the Doc.  So we
assumed the worst, said our goodbyes, bawled our eyes out, & I placed
his fav white stuffed ferret in the only hole we found with evidence of
a ferret (his droppings).  We went to get me x-rayed & medicated.
 
Throughout the day I stopped to pray for Allie.  I prayed he'd be
returned to us.  I prayed he'd be found by someone else who would love
him as much as we did.  I prayed he'd die peacefully in his sleep.  I
prayed for anything but him suffering (starving to death, being maulled
by a dog or wild bird/animal, being captured & euthanized by animal
control, being swept away in the river or struck by a passing train or
car).
 
At 9pm we decided to take one last desperate look around.  As we started
to descend the ladder we saw two young girls ascending carrying an
extremly muddy but happy Allie & the flyer with his photo.  They saw him
on the other side of the bridge from where he went in, playing in a pool
of water doing flips into a dry hole & playing peek-a-boo with them.  The
one girl thought it was a rat but the other had an interest in ferrets,
recognized him as an albino, approached him slowly with her hand out
expecting to be bit and was surprised when he came up and started licking
her.  As she carried him out, the other found the "Lost" flyer we made of
him & they were on their way to find a phone to call us when we bumped
into them on the stairs.
 
I can't tell you how thankful I am.  We got him home, fed him, gave him
FerretAid, and bathed him.  He had one tick that came off when we put
cooking oil over its body.  He did not have any fleas or earmites.  He
did have a lot of reddish gook in his ears, which could be from the red
sandstone dust he was rumaging around in.
 
I've never felt this kind of bond towards any animal, nor this level of
loss of anyone in my life.  I've never bawled so uncontrollably; not when
I learned I was going blind, not when my sister went deaf/blind/lame, not
when I lost relatives.  I told my fiancee, truthfully, that the happiest
day of my life was proposing to her & the second happiest was today, me -
speechless seeing Allie alive & well again.  Not a day has gone by since
that I haven't prayed in praise & thanks for little Allie being returned
home healthy & safe.
 
"Intelligence is like 4-wheel drive.  It allows you to get stuck in more
'remote' places."
 
~ Garrison Keillor ~
[Posted in FML issue 4924]