Jerry died one year ago yesterday, February 15, at age seven.
 
Jerry had spent almost all of her life with us.  We picked out Jerry and
Ben, her littermate, in January, 1990.  They were together in a little
enclosure in a pet store.  Clare chose Ben, and Bill thought the two should
stay together.  Ben and Jerry were full of boundless energy as kits,
wrestling with each other, digging in the litterbox, and running around our
apartment on fast forward.  Very early in life, Jerry developed an interest
in stashing treasures.  Once, she grabbed a string of Christmas lights and
pulled them under the sofa.  That spring, as we were packing up to move to
our house, Jerry snatched our scissors and carried them behind the corner
china cabinet.  The little collar we tried to get her to wear ended up in
the same inaccessible location.  Jerry's favorite toys for most of her life
were plastic lids, especially the ones from Quaker Oats oatmeal canisters.
When she carried a lid in her mouth, she looked like a little dog with a
Frisbee.
 
New places always fascinated Jerry.  Once, she got into the air duct system
and traveled under the floor from one side of the house to the other.  On
another occasion, she escaped from the travel cage while we were driving on
the Pennsylvania Turnpike and disappeared amidst the luggage and bags in the
back of the car.
 
Although tiny, Jerry was very feisty.  She would often do the
lick-lick-chomp routine; she convinced several relatives to be wary of
ferrets.  She could intimidate our 43-pound dog by staring him down.  Jerry
deferred to Ben, however.
 
Jerry was healthy for most of her life.  She survived a vaccine reaction and
a bite injury that became infected.  At age 4 she started slowing down,
becoming less energetic, less feisty, and more remote.  But she still
carried her lids and put them where they belonged, begged for raisins and
Ferretone, and danced in a circle with Ben.
 
At age 6 1/2, Jerry suddenly started losing hair on her sides.  She lost
weight and eventually stopped eating.  Jerry had adrenal disease and early
renal failure.  We started syringe-feeding her in October, 1996.  We were
apprehensive about surgery, but Dr. Weiss thought she would do well.  Jerry
had adrenal surgery on October 18.  She recovered well and most of her hair
grew back.  She never did go back to eating on her own, so we hand-fed her
for the rest of her days.  Unfortunately, Jerry's kidney function continued
to deteriorate.  By early December we knew that her time was short.  We did
all we could to treat the many symptoms of kidney failure: Amoxicillin and
Carafate for ulcers, Pet-tinic for anemia, Tums for calcium deficiency,
Ampho-jel for elevated phosphorus, and subcutaneous fluid injections for
dehydration.
 
Jerry had a good Christmas.  She was able to travel with us to Ohio and New
Jersey, and she was still interested in exploring new places.  She was very
interested in raisins but didn't eat them very often.  Instead, she would
stash raisin after raisin next to the sofa or in her little tent.  She kept
coming back for more raisins to grab, carry off, and hide.  We spent a lot
of time with her, knowing this was our last Christmas together.  (Little did
we know that it was also our last Christmas with Ben.)
 
Early in January, Jerry took a turn for the worse.  Weekly injections of
Winstrol helped, but she was clearly nearing the end.  Still, she would
carry one or two of her lids behind the sofa.  On a good day, she would
carry three or four before curling up in her little sleeping bag.
 
On February 15 (while Ben was recovering from surgery), I found Jerry in
the corner of the cage in a contorted position.  She was alive but barely
conscious, if at all.  We realized the time had come and tried to face it
calmly.  We took turns holding her until she passed away at 3:25 in the
afternoon.
 
Jerry was a pretty sable ferret with white feet and a white bib.  We have
collected many pictures of Jerry (and our other ferrets) at our image
gallery at URL: http://www.astro.umd.edu/~wls/images/ .
 
It's been a year since Jerry's death, but we still miss her, and memories
of her are still very strong.
 
Clare and Bill Sebok
[Posted in FML issue 2220]