I'm Paddy, and I am a Marshall Farms ferret.  Uh.  I was born well, late
evening of November 23rd 1989.  Which makes me Nine years of age.  I am a
playful, friendly, and somewhat talkative gib who has started to slow down
just a little.  Actually.  A lot.
 
I am not ashamed of my being a Marshall Farms ferret.  I was born a
Marshall Farms Ferret, and I will die a Marshall Farms ferret.  I have
come to join MF Anonymous in order to tell you my story.
 
6 weeks after I was born, and when my memory was a little hazy, I was taken
from my mother and placed, with many other kits of the same age, into a
dark box.  I was still somewhat stiff and a little sore from the operation
they had done a little over a week before.  I arrived at the pet store
after many stops and many starts.  Once I got to the pet store they placed
me in a little cage with others I had travelled with.  I wasn't the first
to be sold, nor the last.  Several kits disappeared while I waited for my
people to arrive, and when they came, I didn't know it, at first.
 
The young boy dragged me out of the cage with both hands, and, quite
frankly I was scared!!  I admit to nipping him just a little.  But he just
cuddled and soothed me, and I calmed down before long.  He named me then
and there at the pet store.  "Paddy" he said "You're coming home now"
 
Since that day, I have lived with that boy, watched him grow as I grew
alongside him.  We moved house twice.  Once when he left home for college,
and again when he left the college dorm for an apartment.
 
I started slowing down only recently, it's harder to get all excited as I
used to, but I still get excited when he walks in the door.  I'll still
stand with one paw on his foot for a treat, and I'll still watch every move
he makes when he's near.  I sleep some more now than I used to.  Actually,
I get tired kind of easily, and in the last year he's started giving me
some not very nice medicine every day so I don't get so tired so quickly
and get all spaced out when I haven't been eating.
 
I love my boy, as I know he loves me, and my coming from a pet store, and
originally being born in Marshall Farms has no influence on our love for
each other.  I only hope that other ferrets and their boys and girls will
learn that as we have.
 
Paddy
[Posted in FML issue 2538]