Anyone who has had a ferret knows they love to stash objects: bits of food,
toys, socks, basically whatever they can get their teeth on and quickly carry
away.
 
Binky has carried this to the extreme.  She started out harmless enough:
her small squeeky toys, or the cat's larger plush toys, but these objects
only whetted her appetite for stashing objects.  Next, she moved up to
underwear (mostly Elayne's, my SO) dish-towels, and shoes, but these
objects required more space than her old hidey-holes, so she claimed the
covered cat-beds, much to the chagrin of our 3 cats.  Ah, but now her
little "habit" has become a full-blown addiction.  She pulls sweaters
and jackets off of chairs and stuffs them under the futons.  She hauls
our heavy hiking boots behind the toilet.  She manages to jump up and grab
onto the bath towels in the bathroom, pull them down, then wedge them in
the gap under the linen closet door (often blocking off her escape from
the closet).  Last week I realized that she needed help.  She had hauled
a throw rug (6' by 6') from the front room and stuffed it into her and
Moki's cage.  Moki, who had often looked on in mild amusement at Binky's
previous accomplishments, is now fairly annoyed at her cage-mate, and
we suspect if she were capable of using the phone, would have committed
Binky to Betty Ford by now.
 
Any hints on how to tone down her pack-rat habit?
 
Leonard Bottleman
 
[Posted in FML issue 0607]