sorry for so many things all in one...

first, thanks to all who emailed about shay's horribly untimely passing
a couple weeks ago; i appreciate all the support from you wonderful
FMLers. :)

and to the bridge greeters, has shay arrived safely? i'd not read
anything and wondered, if in his best mountain-climbing intrepid
fashion, he'd somehow found a way to slip over the bridge unnoticed.

as for the followup on shay's passing part, i received news which
helped much to assuage my guilt-feeling; that i could have missed
something. i received a call from the vet's office. the wonderful
vet (dr david manobla at beaver brook animal center), with his 'need
to know', sent a specimen of shay's ruptured intestines up to the
pathology lab at colorado state university...turns out shay had an
aggressive, very rapidly-developed form of cancer; angiosarcoma...
apparently rare in ferrets, more often seen in dogs. it grew with no
symptoms until it literally reached 'critical mass' and caused the
sudden intestinal rupture, acute peritonitis, and death. the end
happened within a few hours (in this case during the nght, since we
found him gone that morning), the vet said, and there was nothing that
could have been done had we found him alive sooner. so that helps me
accept it somewhat, but it still is so terribly unfair. :(

final question: pandora, who fortuitously arrived shortly after pixie's
surgery, to give her a small-cage companion, was caught recently
chewing on the baby blankies their hammock is made from and i've taken
them away. this is a first in almost 15 years of ferret-ownership;
cloth-chewing. i'm not sure what's causing the behavior, and so far
we've been very-very lucky that we've found pieces she'd swallowed that
have passed with the help of ferretlax, she seems to be fine. this just
started happening, and we've had pandy since abut thanksgiving. she was
very young when we got her, maybe 8 months, vet-estimated.

any insight as to what could be causing this new bad habit?

ok, done. i've talked everyone's virtual ears off enough. thank you in
advance, all. :)

~sherrie, aka daoine o', the ferret queen

pixie, burleigh, and pandora

~missing shay, max, sascha-beanhead, monty-boo, razzle, jezebel, loki,
sylvi, natasha the stranger, and dweezil...my first, my one small star.

[Posted in FML 6630]