Dear Ferret Folks-

Yesterday Gordon wrote of his two new fuzzies returning themselves to
the cage. This is an interesting habit, one that I am not accustomed
to. But I'm getting some practice with it! For some peculiar reason,
Ping and Puma have recently started "putting themselves away" at the
end of an out in the house session. First Puma started doing it pretty
consistently, and Ping started following suit as he does not like to be
separated from Puma. Now I'm getting used to finding the two curled up
together in one of their hammies with the cage door wide open after an
hour or two of play.

I have *no* idea why Puma started the trend. I'm accustomed to ferrets
*fighting* to keep from going back to the cage...turning themselves
into smoke and burying themselves deep inside of sofas to stay "free"
just a little while longer. At first I wondered if there was something
unpleasant happening in the house to make Puma want a safer place. Was
the dog being crabby? No. Was Puma's usual wrestling partner, Sterling
the Silver cat playing too hard with her? No. She was still whuppin'
his butt, as usual, despite his being easily seven times her
weight--probably more. Sterling is pretty hard on the local birds and
mice, but all of his hunting skill has not let him get the upper paw
with Puma. She chases him all over the house, and the two have to be
separated sometimes so that Sterling can catch his breath. As I have
mentioned before, there is a reason we named her *Puma*, and not
Cuddles or Fluffy.

I feel bad about having to keep my small friends caged, but here in
our new house we don't have a ferret room. In the year since we moved
here I have seen Ping lose some of his muscle from cage life, the same
muscle I saw him gain when we first brought him home and he went from
having a cage to having his own big playroom. I give them lots of "out
time", and it seems a waste that they want to spend some of it asleep
in their cage with the door wide open. Maybe just having the door open,
the knowledge that it is open puts them at ease. They know they can
leave if they want to, and that is "freedom" of a kind from their
perspective.

It is certainly convenient. At first I would try to gather them up at
the end of an out in the house session by squeaking their favourite
rubber toy, and I was amazed the first few times they came running
*out* of their cage! The whole point was to put them *in* the cage. I'd
have to catch them and return them, and yes, it made me feel stupid.
Maybe that's the point. It's an FLO mind trick. Play with the hoomins
by putting yourselves away! Are there lots of FML'ers out there whose
ferrets also "put themselves away?"

Alexandra in MA

[Posted in FML 5761]