Jerry, one of our two original ferrets, has been suffering from kidney
failure.  Since early fall we have been hand-feeding her.  As her illness
progressed, her daily care became more complicated.  Within the last week
and a half she had begun to fight her food.  Still, as recently as two or
three days ago she scampered down the hall and put a lid away behind the
sofa.  Putting lids away and stashing raisins were two of her favorite
activities.  She leaves behind her sister and littermate, Ben, who
unfortunately is suffering from lymphosarcoma.  Ben and Jerry turned seven
in December.  They were our only ferrets for four years.  Jerry was a pretty
little sable mitt.  You can see her picture in my Web photo gallery at
"http://www.astro.umd.edu/~wls/images/".  A memorial page for her is in
preparation.
 
This morning Clare found Jerry in a contorted position on the rug in the
cage.  Suspecting an insulinoma seizure, we rubbed Karo syrup on her gums.
She settled into a more relaxed position but still did not move from where
she was placed.  Later we noticed that she sounded like she had fluid in her
lungs.  During the afternoon she went into a seizure.  She died at 3:25 pm,
as I was holding her.  With my hand on her heart I could tell when she was
gone.
 
I would like to close with remembering one of the things she did when she
was younger and healthier.  When she was three the dog was romping in the
ferret room and somehow lifted the grate from the heating duct.  Clare wrote
this post about Jerry in FML issue #378 on December 11, 1992:
 
>Subject: ferret in the heating duct
 
Recently Bill was playing with our two ferrets in our supposedly ferret-
proofed room.  I was in another room on the other side of the house.  I
started to hear scratching noises coming from underneath the floor!  I
looked down at the floor register and saw a little face peering up at me.
The view through the grate wasn't too clear, and I thought a rat had managed
to get into the house.  I called to Bill, and while he was on the way I got
a closer look at the creature under the grate.  This time the little face
looked familiar: it was our ferret, Jerry.  When Bill arrived and I told him
that Jerry was in the heating duct, he was totally bewildered, since he was
sure that the ferrets were in the other room.  He went back and found that
the metal cover had been removed from the duct opening.  Meanwhile, I ran
downstairs and got a box of raisins to coax Jerry out of the duct.  She came
out almost immediately when she heard the sound of a raisin box being
shaken.  She was dusty but unharmed.  We think that the dog must have
knocked the register cover off when he was romping with the ferrets.  The
next day Jerry seemed to remember that she had found a tunnel underneath.
We may have to bolt the cover to the floor.  Bill says that if something
like this ever happens again, he would immediately turn off the circuit
breaker to disconnect the heater.  We're glad this story has a happy ending.
We also hope that this story will alert other ferret parents to a potential
danger.
[Posted in FML issue 1846]