Hi folks.  I've been reading the FML for about 6 months and I've posted a
couple or times, but let me (re) introduce myself.  My name's Kathy and I
(currently)have one ferret named Felix.  He's about 1 1/2 years old.  I
adopted him from a college student who wound up being allergic to him.  At
that time I was living with 2 other fuzzies and a boyfriend, but we've
broken up and he took the other 2 ferrets with him (*sob*).  So Felix is
back to being an only ferret again.
 
So Ed (my roommate) and I were out looking at cages since we've been
thinking about getting another ferret and we just fell in love with an older
ferret at one of the pet stores.  This store will occasionally take in pets
dropped off by owners who no longer want them.
 
Well, this ferret was one of those "misfits".  She's a small mostly silver
MF ferret with one all black leg and a black nose.  She's really cute and
sweet.  The woman at the store thought that she was an "old lady" because
she constantly shakes.  I know that fuzzies shake when they're just woken
(?) up or if they're cold, but this was beyond any of that.  She was out for
about 5-10 minutes and didn't stop shaking and it was certainly not cold.
She's smaller than average but she seemed to have just as much energy as any
other fuzzy I've seen.
 
The woman at the store readily admitted that she doesn't know much about
ferrets and was very willing to listen.  (They had 4 MF kits there and she
was rather surprised to hear about MF's reputation.  Her impression was that
the ferrets were bred by some one else; that Marshalls just brokered them.)
I even taught her the good ol' ferretone-on-the-belly-nail-clipping-trick.
I'm not convinced that the shaking is necessarily a sign of age since I've
never heard any one mention it nor did I see it in the FAQ.
 
Any ideas?  I'd love to bring this little girl home and give Felix a
playmate again, but I don't want to get her and find out that she has some
kind of serious illness and not have the time to take care of her properly.
 
Please let me know what you all think.  Ed is reluctant to get an older
ferret because he's afraid that he'll get all attached and then she'll die
shortly after.  I have no problem with that as long as I feel that I did all
I could to make her/him as happy as she/he made me.  I had intended to go to
a bona fide shelter anyway, but how many others of us have been similarly
waylaid?
 
Thanks for your help!
 
Kathy and Felix (and Ed, though he never cleans the litterboxes)
[Posted in FML issue 1850]