I thought I had done it. I hadn't stepped in any poo this morning, nor
had I found by accident one of those piles of poo, so cunningly hidden,
that you would think it had been stashed. No one had tried to tunnel
under the freshly-laid potty paper, knocking off the other play group's
nightly deposits. In short, I had not had to clean up any poo, until.

My ferret room is organized thus: There are three cages against two
walls. One is very, very large; one is just large; one is a small
three-level isolation cage that ferrets may play in, if no one is ill
at the moment. The door to the room is quite recessed, and, of course,
by the door was where the weasels decided to make their communal
bathroom. So, the first three feet into the room, coming out just a
few inches passed the end of the alcove, newspaper is laid for their
reading enjoyment as they do their business. The rest of the room
consists of a small desk, shelves and plastic drawers of ferret
necessities, a cooler of ferret kibble, a six-foot-tall cat tree, and
various toys, carpeted cat houses, bedding, and tunnels. The room is
partitioned off from the rest of the apartment by a baby gate. Each of
the two groups of ferrets gets close to twelve hours out - one during
the day and one overnight.

I've started having to sit with the larger group - Rhys, Ayla, Codo,
Mandie, and Winter - during the first hour they are out each morning.
The adolescents, Mandie and Winter, have been more rambunctious than
usual, picking on Codo and everyone else more than I'd like. They
aren't leaving any punctures, but, you see, using Codo as a chew toy is
absolutely forbidden by order of the all powerful human mom. Codo is
sacrosanct, because he is partially paralyzed. Rhys has also been a bit
rough on Ayla, his preferred chew toy, when his oral melatonin, given
in addition to his deslorelin implant, hasn't had time to kick in for
that morning. When fresh potty paper is laid, I must also watch to make
sure Mandie doesn't go spelunking underneath.

I watched over my charges for an hour. I gave Ayla her morning soup.
I gave Rhys his melatonin. I filled up the water and food bowls and
checked the levels in the water bottles. I filled up the plastic toy
that dispenses treats as it is knocked around. I checked the floor to
make sure that, during the night, Charlie and Holly had not missed the
potty paper. I even let them sniff my morning soft drink; sorry, but
no coffee here.

Then, as I went to round up the things I had to carry out of the room -
the phone, Ayla's breakfast dish, an empty bottle of water which I use
to fill up water bowls, and my soft drink can - My foot slid up under
Charlie and Holly's cage and into a fresh pile of - You guessed it! -
poop. I thought to myself, "Okay, this is a normal part of your day,
just hop over to the bottle of hand sanitizer across the room and clean
up a bit. Then, you can come back with the paper towels and Nature's
Miracle to attack the carpet." A normal procedure, for certain, but my
open can of soda was sitting with the rest of the things to be carried
over the baby gate on the cooler within ferret-reach. I did hop across
the room to the hand sanitizer, but flailed the compromised foot at the
cooler, protecting the items I'd left in ferret-reach from the swarm of
interested furballs.

After I sanitized my foot and moved the objects of ferret interest out
of ferret-reach, I worked on the carpet. Meanwhile, Mandie, who could
have started this all morning, finally got around to exploring the
underside of the potty paper, tearing some of it and wrinkling the
carefully-laid paper all to hell. I recovered the offending weasel and
straightened the paper as best I could. The paper must be carefully
laid, because lumpy paper, such as paper ballooned up by a tunneling
ferret, discourages proper potty etiquette, leaving me more gifts on
my carpet. The kids are potty-trained 90% of the time, for which I am
grateful and justifiably proud.

After going a few rounds with Mandie and her paper-tunneling fixation,
I have given up for the moment. My last tactic in the potty-paper war,
other than constant vigilance, is to distract the bunch. I've thrown in
the room two empty boxes that held 24 cans of soda each and one empty
twelve-pack box. I hope this will occupy Mandie for some time. If she
leaves the paper alone, the others do, but they can't help but be
interested in the paper, if Mandie is making it rattle attractively.
I expect the boxes to give me a half-hour of rest, and then I'm back
listening for the tell-tale rattle of spelunked potty paper, at least
until it has become too used for Mandie to bother with her undercover
explorations.

So goes my Monday morning.

Monday morning dooks,
Lori in Ohio
Rhys, Ayla, Codo, Mandie, Winter, Charlie, and Holly

[Posted in FML 6694]