Hi everyone,

Follow-up to my last post on the Craigslist ferret: a few hours after
I posted it, the guy who ran the ad emailed me to say the guy who was
supposed to come get his ferret never called, and he would take a check
if I added $5 for bus fare to get to his bank (??). I figured it was a
small price to pay, so I agreed. Monday night, packed up Eddie and went
to meet his prospective new brother.

I want to say, I think these people-- kids, really, hence the netspeak
in the emails-- had their hearts in the right place, and the presence
of mind to realize they can't take care of their animals (they had also
gotten rid of two guinea pigs and some fish, apparently can't afford to
heat their apartment), but really had no idea how to care for a ferret.
The guy and his girlfriend, who can't have been over 19 and told me
she had a two-year-old, seemed to love this baby, and indeed he's very
friendly and people-socialized, not even nippy when he's playing. On
the flip side, he was being kept in a small cage on bare wire, from
which he could easily escape, being fed cheap cat food and rice (?),
and had no litter in his litter box, as well as no toys. This also
being a house of heavy smokers, the poor little thing STUNK to high
heaven of cigarettes and dirty cage! For all that, he's gorgeous and
is going to be huge-- estimated age is 8 months, he's still got that
blunt baby face but is bigger than Eddie! The two boys hit it off
immediately, I think each was just thrilled to meet another ferret.
Some hisses and squabbles, but they were able to share a carrier on
the way home when I realized I didn't want to keep him in that horrid
cage, and ended up falling asleep in a heap together.

The second day I had him home, my housemate expressed concern over the
smell, and told me she wasn't sure she wanted the ferrets in the house
anymore. This terrified me-- I'm at least his third home (previous
people got him from someone *else* on Craigslist), and I promised him
he was home forever now. That's not a promise you ever want to break.
I've since given him a bath, scrubbed down the cage the two of them
now share, and have really stepped up the poop-scooping. She hasn't
said anything more about it over the past week, and things seem to be
smoothed over-- she's definitely the type to tell me when there's a
problem.

The boys are getting along like they were brothers from birth-- the new
baby came with the name Sobe, but I renamed him Valentine Mike after
the main character in "Stranger in a Strange Land." Eddie's doing a
great job teaching him ferret things, he's learning how to wrestle and
chase, and just a bit ago the two of them teamed up to tip over the
bathroom garbage... *sigh*... I'm a little concerned about his weight.
He's bigger than Eddie but not as heavy-- Eddie's a dense little tank
of muscle but Vally seems to be made mainly of squishy tummy fat. I'd
guess this is from lack of exercise (Eddie was quite a fatty when I
first got him as well), and hopefully the way these two lunatics are
chasing each other around it'll resolve itself. He's also had no
problem eating the Wysong food I feed Eddie, occasional runny poops
from the switch but he snarfs it right down and his energy level is
great. The one problem I am having is his propensity to poop on the
top shelf of the cage, right on the edge so it falls down the side!
We'll work on that.

I hope everyone and their fuzzies are doing well, and good thoughts to
those who aren't... sorry this was so long, it's not even the half of
all the stresses I've had this week, but hopefully things will continue
to work out. It makes me so happy to watch the two of them together!

Rachel, Eduardo Zeppelin-Godzilla von Sockslayer
and Valentine Michael Fuzz

[Posted in FML 6128]