It was a blistering hot summer day in early July 1994 when I found myself in
the area of a pet store which imported Canadian ferrets that I had been
meaning to check.  I am one of several pet store stalkers in this area who,
from time to time, descend to check out conditions.  Pet store owners have
been known to leave by the back door when they see me coming.  This day was
to be no different.  Conditions were very bad.  I found a number of very
young kits in glass fronted cages, under bright lights, in pine shavings.
Their food source was a hard pellet food that looked difficult to manage,
and I could see that most of the kits seemed to have colds.  The store
clerks were concerned when I asked about the ferrets and said they looked
ill, and one employee let me go in the back to check the ferrets.  The
narrow corrider behind the cages was stifling.  The cage temps had to be in
the low 90's.  At closer view, the kits appeared quite ill.  I examined
several and picked up one whose eye was so infected the cornea had ulcerated
and there was pus on his face (yes, I know this is gross).
 
I kept him with me, wiping the infection with saline eye drops and a tissue
as we went, at my insistence, to phone the store manager.  I made a demand
for a vet to visit and complained about the heat.  The manager was
uncooperative, and so to make a story shorter - I purchased the sick kit,
called vets from my car, called a friend to call Animal Control and another
friend to also do a check on the store.  The kit was rushed to the first vet
I found in and who agreed to see me before afternoon office hours.
 
The baby was happy to sleep in my purse while all this was going on, and I
really did not get a good look at him until he was brought out to be
examined.  He was a blaze with white undercoat and black guard hairs.  The
vet, Dr. Roger Hart, kept referring to him as a "little sweet heart" and so
he was named - Sweet Hart, after Dr. Hart.  With antibiotics for his eye
and his flu infection we went home where Sweet Hart was placed in isolation
from my other ferrets.  Being constantly in a state of denial, I planned to
nurse him back to health and then adopt him out.  Being constantly in a zoo
of ferrets, there is no such thing as isolation in my house, and soon the
more atheletic ferrets had managed to reach his cage in the kitchen and I
soon had a houseful of ferrets with flu.
 
Within a short period of time, Sweet Hart was much better and ready to join
the rest of the wild and woolly crew.  There was never further discussion
about adopting him out.  In a remarkable short period of time, he managed to
conquer my heart with his intelligence and antics.  I fell swiftly under his
spell.  Most people, on meeting Sweet Hart, fell swiftly under his spell.
He grew rapidly into a sturdy and handsome fellow.  His eyes were large and
expressive with rims and a further rim of black with smudges under the
outside corners.  A white blaze started at his forward and traveled down the
back of his head and neck to the shoulders.  He sported a beautiful white
bib which covered his entire front chest.  His undercoat was very white and
his guard hairs were solid black.  His front paws were full mitts scalloping
upward over his ankles and perfectly matched.  (blazes often have slashed
mitts across the toes).  His back mitts were two slashes.  His knees sported
white smudges and his front "arm pits" were smudged with white too.  He
liked to "pose" with his neck arched backward slightly which displayed his
white chest a profile to perfection -- I was quite enamored with this guy
and thought him quite a handsome fellow.  He knew that.  As a matter of
fact, he was quite popular with friends and visitors and for some reason,
men in particular seemed to gravitate toward him.  He was the personality
kid.  Also a devil.  Also I think the smartest ferret I have ever known.
 
He liked to ride shoulders, facing front of course.  He especially liked to
ride men's shoulders and I have a picture in my mind of Charlie Fellows
M.C.ing a show with Sweet Hart perched on his shoulders with his front paws
on top of his head.  He did like to be at the center of things.  He always
leaned forward on shoulders, or perched part way up on heads, as if maybe
this posture would carry him faster to a destination.  You could just
picture this quy leaning forward over a motorcycle handbars with a cap on
his head, shades and a white scarf around his neck and blowing in the
breeze.  He rushed to embrace life and all it had to offer.
 
He found everything interesting and was a "participating ferret".  Which
means, no matter what I was doing, he was always there to help me do it.
Every morning started out with his soft muzzle in my ear and brushing around
my face.  He carefully checked all my wardrobe as I dressed.  Make-up was
done with his help.  On my shoulder, both of us would lean forward to the
mirror.  He never turned and watched me, he always watched me do it in the
mirror.  Sometimes it was hard to see because his face was in the way.  But
most of my life was like that.  He simply had to be involved.  With Sweet
Hart, there was no such thing as ferret proofing.  Everything and anything
was just a matter of how long it would take him to figure out how to reach
it, or open it, or whatever.  His specialty was opening things.  He had the
widest jaw spread of any ferret I have ever had and this wide jaw spread
enabled him to do things most ferrets cannot.  Like opening lids and
unscrewing caps.  He opened Pounce cans, he opened raisin cannisters, he
went around the rim and popped off the lids on the large Iams cans I use to
mix my ferret food.  He could unscrew tubes and caps - like nutri-cal and
coke bottles.  Opening coke bottles was great fun.  Often I would find a two
liter bottle rolled well over carpeting and floor to leave a long trail of
diet coke.
 
Of course, I hid treats and supplements like Pounce, raisins, nutri-cal,
felovite II and other things all the time.  But no matter where my hiding
place, he would soon "ferret" it out and steal the goodies.  One place was
the medicine cabinet, just recently, but he saw me put the nutri-cal and
raisins there and soon he learned to open the medicine cabinet.  He could
climb anywhere.  sigh.  He and his best partner in crime, Honey Bun, often
worked together on a project; and I have seen my ferrets actually watching
and waiting for him to reach some forbidden treat to share with them.
 
He was into everything all the time.  My life revolved in great part around
just plain trying to outsmart him, or confound him.  My only weapon was a
cobalt blue water bottle with a pump spray - long range - which would deter
him.  He hated it.  One place absolutely forbidden to all of my ferrets is a
large square enamel table between the bed and a chair in my bedroom.  The
water bottle resided as a warning to all ferrets on this table.  Of course,
I had to be there to use the water bottle to deter them if something was on
the table that they wanted.  Sweet Hart would lay low and watch to see me
forget that I had set something on the table, like the nutri-cal tube and
then he would stage a raid.  Faster than lightening he would dash across the
table, grab the prize and take off.  If I was very, very fast, I could hit
him with a shot of water before he reached the forbidden prize.  This would
send him into a crazy dance to ward off the water.  He hated it.  Most
often, however, he was faster than me because he would wait until I left the
area.  I would hear crashing sounds, and run back to find things knocked
over and no Sweet Hart in sight.  He had good hiding places too, and it
usually took me a while to find him.  By then he and others were happily
pigged out on the booty.
 
Once Sweet Hart stole the dreaded cobalt blue water bottle and hid it way
beneath a chest.  After retreiving it several times, just to have him drag
it off again, I purchased another bottle.  When there came an occasion to
use it, Sweet Heart was astounded.  He actually went and looked in his
hiding place to see if the bottle was there.  It was.  He sat for a long
time, his eyes wide, while his main frame processed this information.  But
this did not stop him for long - life was one busy project after another,
and he had places to go, things to do and people to see.
 
Sweet Hart kept me busy and was a constant entertainment.  He made me laugh.
He also made me love him.  Very much.  Maybe too much.  It is difficult for
me to find words to adequately describe him.  He was so alive.  He exuded
vitality and energy.  He was vibrant and beautiful.  And then he was gone.
 
It has been two weeks now and I am still numb from the loss.  It was swift.
Late in the afternoon I was talking to a friend who was filling me in on the
HSUS Conference.  I commented to her that Sweet Hart was crouched with his
head extended over a water bowl.  Animals will sometimes do this if they are
feeling nauseated.  She commented on this.  After I got off the phone, I
found him.  He seemed o.k., but I gave him a bit of Pepto to settle his
stomach if it was upset.  I really cannot go into depth on this, but his
condition rapidly deteriorated over night.  Around mid-night I isolated him
and gave him fluids - his nose was cool, but dry.  In the night, he seemed
pale.  I placed a warm pack with him and added to ferrets to keep him warm.
By morning, on palpating, I found his upper abdomen was somewhat rigid -- I
felt he was bleeding internally.  The rest was a rush to find the first vet
who could see him.  By the time we reached one, his nose was jaundiced.  By
the time we left there to race to Dr.  Tom Kawasaki for emergency
transfusion, I could feel him slipping away.  I carried with me x-ray plates
which showed a small object in the upper stomach which appeared to be metal.
(this object was not found during surgery).  After Tom examined him and
discussion - He decided to go in and take a look.  Sweet Hart's chances of
surviving this, I knew, were slim.  But Tom did not have to tell me he was
dying.  I knew.
 
I have known Dr. Kawasaki for a very long time.  I first met him when he was
fresh into practice and at a vet clinic near where I lived.  In fact, I saw
my first ferret in his office.  He took care of my first dachsund, an old
guy, Sammy.  He would constantly refer to his notes.  I did not know then,
but do now, that Tom always does this.  I remember that I thought at the
time he had to "look up things".  This was indeed long ago, Sammy is long
gone, and my present dachsund, Cuddles, is eighteen years old.  I know that
if a ferret has any chance at survival Tom can save him or her.  But I was
prepared.  I had to leave, sometimes I go into surgery with him, but not
this time.  I asked him to call me.  Tom said it would be about 45 minutes.
When he did not call after a couple of hours, I called his office.  I was
told he left the building.  I knew Sweet Hart was gone.  Tom left.  And so I
was prepared for the inevitable when he called.  Sweet Hart was bleeding
internally and part of his liver was necrotic and his kidneys were failing.
What did this?  We talked about the possiblities.  Today the pathology
report came, and Tom read it to me -- we still don't know for sure what the
problem was, but there was certainly a lot of things gone wrong.  Dr. Bruce
Williams did the path.  There are several possibilities.  I thought it might
have been something toxic, but Dr. K. does not think so.  He plans to talk
to Bruce.  In fact, DR. BRUCE WILLIAMS, if you read this - you have my
permission to give information on this case on FML, plus your opinion.
Maybe it will be of help to someone else sometime.
 
I have not wept for Sweet Hart yet.  I think some losses go deeper than
tears.  His precious life was so short.  Too short.  I think this is what
causes me the most pain.  And perhaps I have not accepted it yet - he just
seemed too much full of life to leave it after such a brief stay.  But he
did pack a lot of living into the time he had.  As Sweet Hart was slipping
away, a dear friend's ferret was giving birth to kits.  My friend has
offered me one of these babies, and this is a bright spot for me - what a
generous and loving offer.  Maybe Sweet Hart's soul flew north.....But I can
only think that if there is a heaven, all of my beloved ferrets gone ahead
are waiting for me there.  Frisky and Whiskey, Shadow and Dusk, and Zoe.
And my Sweet Hart.  For if they are not there for me to join them some day,
then it will be no heaven at all.
 
But my Sweet Hart is still everywhere for me.  He is leaning forward into
the wind.  He is dancing away from the rain drops.  He is snapping at the
snow that fell last evening.  He is in the rustle of wind through the trees,
and the sun that touches my face.  He is alive in strength of spirit that
knew no limits.
 
                                In Memory
                                Sweet Hart
                      June, l994 - February 22, l996.
[Posted in FML issue 1502]