Hi all--
 
I'll post this on the FML so as not to mess up Bryan Hall's account
further-- Hey Bryan, Hooray!!  This must be such a relief to you, and it
must also help restore your faith in humanity.  And you got to help another
ferret out of the whole deal!  Of course it's not over yet, but congrats,
and keep us posted.
 
on homing ability in ferrets: I moved this summer, so this isn't the case
now, but Amelia could definitely find her way home from the park at my old
place.  When she decided it was time to go home, she'd pull me all the way
home (about 7 blocks) to the front door step, and once I'd unlocked the
front door, up four flights of stairs to my apartment door.  I think most
ferrets have a lousy homing ability because they don't get out that often,
and so 1) are way too excited to come home and 2) don't have the memories
needed to recognize their homes from the outside.  It was probably learned
behavior in Amelia's case; I don't know if she could find her way to our
home now.  Now that it's cooler I'll take her and Cully out more often, so
that she'll at least be able to recognize where home is if she ever got out
on her own, heaven forbid.  Cully I think is way too much of a scatterbrain
to figure it out, though you never know.
 
tail hair loss: since I was one of the first to post about this at the end
of the summer, I thought I'd report back that Amelia has started growing
some hair back in.  I washed her tail every couple of days with a Hibatane
solution and cotton balls, and lathered her tail up good in her bi-monthly
baths.  I didn't want to wash her tail too often because I was worried about
drying out the skin.  So, all you other fer-rat owners out there, don't give
up, the hair does come back.
 
Regina
Amelia ("stop calling me Ratsy")
Cully (*snigger*)
 
*********************************************
Regina Harrison
PhD Student, Anthropology
Joint Co-ordinator, AGSEM-- McGill's TA union
McGill University
Montreal, Quebec
[Posted in FML issue 1697]