Hello all...
 
Someone recently mentioned that the list is dominated by reportz
(reports even darn this mailer) of disease or bad behavior or
of ferret deaths... well here's my candle lit in the darkness to
show that owning a ferret isn't all that bad, really... ;) :)
 
Sprocket (my friends tell me that when they hear that they either
think of Fraggle Rock or of Saturday Night Live ("Now is the time
on Sprockets vhen ve daaancccee!")) and Ivanova (named after the
female Lt. on Babylon 5... same attitude) are getting along just
fine in their new home.  I try to spend as much time with them
as possible, and recently they seem to want to spend a lot of time
with me too.  Which suits me just fine. :)
 
OK it's cute little anecdote time, those of you who don't like
it when your friend pulls out the sheaf of cute kid pictures, can
press page down now. :P
 
Sprocket looks so silly when he sleeps, he lays on his back with his
tongue hanging out.  And then when he wakes, he looks like I feel
in the morning... bleary eyes, stretching, moving slowly... of course
he is 7 years old, I guess he's entitled to get up as slowly as he
likes. What's my excuse?
 
I tried the technique of putting rocks in the corners, to make them
less of a "corner", thus unsuitable to poo in.  The other day I
looked to see poo neatly piled atop one of the rocks.  So much for
that theory.
 
Sprocket seems to need more attention than Ivanova, although I can't
resist picking them up all the time anyway... Sprocket has his little
steps that he goes thru, to try and get my attention.  One day I was
doing dishes, and couldn't be bothered to pick him up.  He came over
and stood on my foot, looking up at me.  I talked to him, but didn't
pick him up.  So he started licking my ankle.  I kept washing.  He
placed his teeth on my ankle, pinching gently, once, then looked up
at me.  I shifted my foot and told him to go play.  I continued doing
dishes.  When next I looked down, there was a little pile of poo by
my foot, neatly embodying Sprocket's opinion of me at that point.
Sprocket had left, but came bounding back into the kitchen when I
growled "Sprocket!"... I can just see him thinking "Hey it *did* get
Mom's attention!"
 
Ivanova seems to want to play at every moment, doing the ferret dance
and leaping around joyously at any opportunity.  She loves chasing
those little plastic balls that have bells in them... I roll it, she
chases it and bats it in another direction, then she laughs at me and
waits for me to throw it again. Note: mean time needed for ferret to
train human is about 1 day, give or take.
 
I have only had 1 person who asked me if ferrets sucked blood
(Can you imagine this little ferret dressed in a cape, with white face
paint, squeaking "I vant to sock your blod"?)... other than that
they just assumed that ferrets were little balls of cuteness. I give
visitors the standard disclaimer of "They may bite a bit hard when they
play, so if you don't own kittens or cats that have done that to you,
you may not want to play with them." Nobody has held back yet, but
then when Sprocket dives out from behind the couch and bounces off your
knee, chuckling... :)
 
Take care all...
Lorene Turner, Ivanova & Sprocket duFerret - [log in to unmask]
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           "I want to be a pirate on the river Saskatchewan"
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"I like to think that there's a little Hamlet in all of us. Not that
melancholy stuff. Or being a prince. But I've always believed that we
should have a little Danish in us.  Especially in the morning."
 -- Leslie Nielsen
 
[Posted in FML issue 0941]