My turn. We lived in southern Wisconsin at the time. I had seen the
occasional ferret with other owners while at the vet's with my cats.
Nice, I thought. Then my oldest son's then- wife came home with one
tiny white girl that she got from someone taking it in the humane
society in Milwaukee where they lived. She was taking in a cat because
they were not supposed to have pets in their apartment. She had known
ferrets before they met so was happy to take her in and give it a home.
At first they made a tiny cage out of hardware cloth but I could see it
needed something larger so I helped buy a decent cage. They could get
by with that pet because it was a caged animal but of course it was let
out to run. A couple years later, they divorced, my son decided to join
the Air National Guard and had to go to Basic Training in Texas. I got
to take care of the ferret. That was it, I was hooked. I soon found a
free female, then a few more, total five. Oh, son also had a few issues
of the fledgling (RIP) Modern Ferret magazine. There was an article
about Ferret Math. I was warned. I also had seen a photo in the paper
of Kathy Fritz of The Ferret Nook so contacted her for some advice
and help. I learned a lot there. About that time my husband had been
retired and wanted to pursue other ventures out in Arizona. We had
to clean up all the house and put the ferrets in a Kritter Koncepts
playpen in the basement while the house was shown. Also about that
time I got my first computer and found ferret advice from the FML.

Eventually we landed in Tucson; I looked up Ginny Childs whom I had as
a reference to find here. She had started Ferret Friends in 1985 and
had a good number of people involved with the club. She later asked
if I would start fostering. When she passed away in late 2005 all the
fostering fell on me and a few others. I have learned by doing, was
kind of shy at first about going to a symposium but went to the St.
Louis one first and haven't missed one since. I have dealt with many
hundreds of ferrets since taking over, from all kinds of situations.
And I must mention the great help from Jo Ann McBride who helped out a
lot for a few years until she had to step down. It's been fun and a lot
of hard work and I've met so many people, everyone I know is a ferret
person. The FML is a must read every night! Thanks for keeping it
going, BIG!

-- 
Carol J. Owens
Ferret Friends, Inc.
Tucson AZ

[Posted in FML 8182]