I'll admit that Kevin's story, as well as Sandee's and the anon poster's
followups had me in tears twice, the two times I read them.
 
About a year ago Beth and I (well, mostly her, with me in a supporting
role) had rescued a young albino male from a pet store in which he was
being kept in disgusting conditions.  He was a heavy nipper and always drew
blood, so the pet store attendants were terrified when it came to changing
its food and water.  He had already been sold once, and promptly returned
because of his heavy biting.  It was fully expected that the same would
happen if he was sold again, and that after the holidays he would end up
being put to sleep.
 
Well, with that wonderful and uncanny intuition Beth has when it comes to
animal moods and natures, she sensed that this was a very well-natured
animal, bored out of his skull and exasperated by the way he was being kept
and by the way he was treated by store staff and customers alike.  She
tricked him into looking away and then she scruffed him and started to
stroke him slowly and soothingly, and had him calmer in minutes that he'd
been in months.
 
The end of the story is that she ended up paying the $199 neither of us
could afford rather than leave the little furry there to what seemed an
inevitable fate.  Today, Myron is one of our favourites, always
delightfully and exasperatingly up to mischief and loving to a fault.
Occassionally, when he gets excited during play, he forgets and bites hard
and draws blood.  But all you have to do is exclaim "Myron!!!" and he
immediately knows he has goofed and walks around trying to pretend it
hasn't happened :)
 
So this one has had a blessed happy ending for which we are immensely
thankful.
 
All the same, the story of Zeus had me in tears.  I felt tempted to ask
permission of Kevin, Sandee and the anon poster to forward the portion of
yesterdays FML with their post to alt.pets.ferrets and rec.pets, as well
as alt.fan.tom-servo (this is mostly where my friends post... they don't
know much about ferrets but it is a community sort of group of mostly
good-hearted people and I think they would be touched, although not as
much as ferret lovers or people who understand ferrets would, of course).
 
Kevin, here is wishing you lots of dooks and warm wishes, and I have no
doubt in my mind that Zeus now has his little pair of wings on all the
time, the ones that only used to show when he was blissfully asleep.
 
Jaime
[Posted in FML issue 2892]