Re: Private Dining
 
We call it "picnic-ing." Squirt, our oldest, used to do the majority of his
eating out of  food bowl, but when he would start to get full, he would carry a
mouthful or three of food into our bedroom to munch. He was more or less
playing with his food. (We found it pretty cute.) About a year after we got
Squirt we got Pippi. We call Pippi "the wild child." She seems a little closer
to her wild ancestry than civilized Squirt. She goes absolutely bananas when
she hears a squeaky rodent-like noise, she is quick to pounce on any quick
moving toy or toe, is real big on the "flight" part of "fight or flight" (run
first, find out later), etc...etc. The part of her "wild-side" that pertains to
this  conversation is her food caching. She stores food *everywhere*!
 
The morning ritual is to let the kids out of their cage when we get up. Pippi's
first duty is to cache 1-3 mouthfuls of food. Grab a mouthful...go hide
it...run back for more! This is also her duty whenever fresh food is put into
the dish. Now she may occasionally eat her caches, but there's always food
around, someplace - under the bed, under the desk, in a box, etc. Squirt no
longer brings food to picnic on, he just finds some of Pippi's!
 
We noticed as part of their winter "preparedness," Squirt ate more and Pippi
cached more. A match made in heaven!  If you read about the ferret's wild
cousins, you'll find out that they will eat their fill of a"bigger" kill and
hide the rest for later. Your fuzzy ones have no eating disorder ;), they're
just being playful or vaguely remembering their wild heritage!
 
-kim, mike, Squirt  "Give me 2 brown and 1 yellow kibble to go, please"
and Pippi  "The Kibble Miser"
 
  Kimberly Burkard          |              _     Everything I needed to know in
  Xerox, Rochester, NY      |       _____C .._.  life I learned from my ferret:
  [log in to unmask]   |  ____/     \___/   Be flexible and go with life's
  [log in to unmask]  | <____/\_---\_\     twists and turns.
[Posted in FML issue 1077]