Recently, we received a call from one of the local humane societies,
saying that they had three ferrets for us to pick up. Two of them were
surrendered by a loving family, and the other was picked up as a stray.

We made arrangements for one of our supporters that lives closer to
the animal shelter, to pick up the ferrets, since our shelter is about
30 miles from the animal shelter.

After picking up the three ferrets, they went to Ralph's house, where
they would stay until we could arrange the transfer to our shelter.
They had the run of his house, and everyone seemed to play fairly well
together, and they took to the regular ferret food with no problem.
(The animal shelter had been feeding them cat food)

A couple of days later, the animal shelter called us and said that a
person had called looking for a lost ferret. They gave us the guys
contact info for us to call him and see if it was his ferret.

After several phone calls between Ralph and me and the ferret owner,
we still were not sure that this was his lost ferret. We were also
not real thrilled about returning the ferret to him even if it was
his; because of the way he said it got lost. He said the ferret got
out thru the cat door, because it was too smart.

He couldn't't give a very accurate description of the ferret, other
than to say it was kind of brown with a mask. He did not have any
pictures to show us, and could not identify and markings that the
ferret had.

We decided to meet the man at a public place, with the ferret in a
carrier along with the other two ferrets that were picked up from
the humane society. We figured that we would give them a choice of
ferrets, and see if they could pick out the one that was the stray.

To make a long story shorter, Ralph met the man at a local parking lot,
with the ferrets in tow. The man got out of his vehicle, and three teen
girls got out with him. After a brief discussion, Ralph got the carrier
out and turned the opening towards them. All three of the little
fuzzies seemed to be "hip" to what was going on, as they all stuck
their faces against the door of the carrier, waiting to be picked out
of the lineup.

The girls all started screeching, like only teen girls can do, and they
all seemed to pick out their ferret by calling out his name...Bandit!

Satisfied that they were the rightful owners of the lost ferret, Bandit
was transferred into their own carrier for the trip home. (later the
next week, they even sent a Paypal donation to the shelter!)

After all of the lost and stray ferrets that find their way into ours
and other shelters around the country, it's nice to have someone that
is actually looking for their ferret, and to be able to reunite them.

Hopefully they learned a lesson, and will keep the cat door locked!

Jim Kennedy, Director
Ferret Rescue of Maine
A State licensed, 501c3 Non-profit shelter.
Donate to shelter ferrets by clicking
igive.com/from

[Posted in FML 6289]