This past December I was given a small female ferret that a co-worker's
children has rescued from their backyard.  The children had kept the ferret
for several weeks, but soon lost interest in it because of the "smell."
 
Being the animal lover that I am I could resist this small beautiful little
creature that immediately curled up in my arms.  I have been breeding and
showing Chihuahuas for over 25 years so currently have 12 Chihuahuas under
foot, plus one Italian Greyhound, one retired racing Greyhound, a Chow-X
that my DH rescued from a very busy intersection, a Sheltie-X that DH also
rescued that had been tied to a gas meter at a mini-storage facility last
December during a severe winter storm.  Along with the canines, we have
three geriatric cats that have all been rescued at different times, four
miniature horses (two stallions we show and two mares we hope to for breed).
I can't forget Shadow, our Guinea Pig, Ginger and Hazel our Hedgehogs,
Mercedes our Teddy Bear Hamster, and Chiquita our Red-lored Amazon.  If your
wondering - we do live on a small farm and all the fur-kids do get along
with each other.
 
To get back to our ferret, we decided to name her DuPont, after the sponsor
of last year's Winston Cup Race Winner, Jeff Gordon, Dupont.  She seems to
be a year or younger and is a beautiful dark sable.  She loves to play and
chase, nips my legs, and play attack with Fuzzy, our 8 month old, 1-1/2 lbs
long hair Chihuahua.  He is so small they are they perfect size for playing
together.
 
Since I work (someone's got to pay the pet food bills ;-> ), my DH and I
were concerned with DuPont being lonesome while I was gone.  So for my
upcoming birthday, my DH bought a beautiful young MF male ferret.  While he
is twice as big as DuPont, we understand that he is under six months of age.
We named him Rocky, short for Rockerfeller.  So now, we watch DuPont, Rocky,
and Fuzzy Chase each other around and under the furniture and computer in
the bedroom each night.  Clarence, our 22 lbs Maine Coon-X cat will
sometimes get down and lay in the middle of their play area - which drives
DuPont nuts!  She'll hiss and dance and try everything in her bag of tricks
to make that big cat move - while he proceeds to roll over on his back,
stick his feet straight up in the air, and take a nap.
 
On another note - collars.  I have used brass ball chain (like what comes on
a ceiling fan) and brass tags or slugs to tag the Chihuahuas.  I have
modified this slightly for DuPont and Rocky.  I still use the brass ball
chain, but for their tags I make ferret shaped tags from Shrink Plastic and
put our phone number on it.  I use a hole punch and punch a hole on each end
of the tag.  I then bake to shrink according to the instructions.  After the
plastic has shrunk, but is still warm I take it out of the oven and slide it
on the side of a small coffee mug so it will curve.  Once it cools, I run
the chain through both holes and fasten.  Nothing dangles to get caught.
The chain is very inexpensive, so it can be replaced when size becomes an
issue.  The chain will break when it is caught and pressure is applied, so
animal will not be choked.  The stainless ball chain does not break so
easily, so that is why I use brass ball chain.
 
I hope I haven't bored ya'll (Texas slang) to sleep with this ;-)
 
Cecilia & friends (woof-woof, meow, hiss-hiss, chirp, whistle & winnie)
~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`~`
Cecilia Hobbs
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[Posted in FML issue 2210]