Mocha was the second ferret and she had a "houdini" attitude. If there
was some place that she had even been given a peak at, she would move
heaven and earth and through walls to get there again. Escape was her
middle name.

The ferret zone was the basement in the original house as it was
easiest to ferret proof and had a door at the top of the stairs to keep
the more open concept upper 2 floors inaccessible. And even smarter
or so we thought, we installed a heavy duty door closer (one of the
stronger models - the force was strong within it) which closed the
basement door with a solid clunk and click. So with full hands we could
take things downstairs and know that when we let them (3 at the time)
out, they were safely contained.

Well, you can see it coming, can't you ?

One evening (note basement contained the only TV in the house which
made it the perfect ferret and family zone) amidst 3 furious ferrets
running all over the place, I lost count. It was 20 to 30 minutes when
I realized that one of them was not with the others. Panic search of
the basement was futile. Oh, no - she's UPSTAIRS. Upstairs was not
ferret proof by any stretch of imagination. I put the others in their
cages and dashed upstairs. And yes, the #$^Q$*$*&( door was not clicked
shut and she had managed to push it open.

Of course, she would not respond to the squeaky toy that sounds like
a baby ferret.

No, she was having too much fun.

What did she find ?

A huge potted "mother-in-laws tongue" with lots of visible dirt which
she dug and flung all over the kitchen floor. Then she climbed from it
onto a kitchen chair, from the chair to the table and from the table
to the lovely clean white counter top. She left her muddy foot prints
all over the surfaces - muddy dirty ferret footprints absolutely
everywhere. Oh, and then the bestest thing - she found the goldfish
bowl. A shiny thing - a bright orange shiny thing. And she got her
dirty little paws into the bowl and terrorized the elderly goldfish
into a frenzy. There was water everywhere on top of the mud and dirt.
Do you know how hard it is to calm down an upset goldfish - it was
traumatized for at least a week and spooked by any movement near
its bowl.

After grabbing the happiest ferret and putting her butt back into the
cage - it took me over 2 hours to clean the mess she had made of the
kitchen. Note that she got time out for a week in a much smaller room
than the normal basement space she usually got to play in !

Mommy was really not amused.

[Posted in FML 8183]