DAF Harry Houdini made his last escape yesterday - August 23, 1998.  He
escaped from us forever - he escaped from life.
 
I watched the whole litter of kits being born.  Two albino boys & a mixed
bunch of sables.  One of the albino boys was so fat!  He had the biggest
red eyes - you could see how big they were even before he opened them.
 
After weaning he was put in the "baby cage" with his siblings.  Many times
we would wake up to baby ferrets all over the room!  We never know who it
was until we hid & watched this huge, albino boy unlatch the cage door
(which was on TOP of the cage) & help get his siblings out!  Hence the name
Harry Houdini - & locks on the cage doors.
 
Every person that came to look at our ferrets passed up this albino boy.
Nobody wanted Harry because he WAS an albino.  Then one day, Harry was
adopted by an older couple.  They had other ferrets & they got along great.
Then we get a phone call from them.  Harry was biting these people.  He came
back to our house - only for us to find out these people were handling him
with leather welding gloves and letting him bite them!  We let him out with
the people present so we could see what was happening.  Harry actually ran
over to these people & bit them!  He bit us once, was repremanded & we never
were bit again.
 
Harry then made his home with us - as a "kit sitter".  All of the kits were
Harry's cagemates at one point - including all three kits that Mia & Patrick
Emery got from us - Spectre, then Ghost, & just recently Bacardi.  He was
wonderful with the kits.  They would jump on him, bite him & he would just
look at me with smiling eyes.  Once the kits were too much he would leave
the area or just lay on top of the kits.  He was never mean, but always
firm and a friend to those babies.
 
Harry loved his stuffed animals - and he knew what "beanies" were.  He had a
giant tomato (from Attack of the Killer Tomatos) that he desperately tried
to stash behind the TV or in the PVC tube.  All we had to say was, "Harry -
Where are the beanies?" and off to my sister-in-law's room he went to go
shopping for Beanie Babies.
 
I noticed Harry was not feeling well & had a mass in his stomach.  He passed
everything he was fed, and he lost a lot of weight.  As we couldn't get a
hold of our regular vet - after desperate tries - we took him to an
emergancy clinic.
 
His temp was normal, and the x-ray was inconclusive.  It showed a mass - a
huge mass - but you couldn't see what it was.  Surgery was not an option at
that time as he was dehydrated.  Poor boy - I was forcing water into him &
it was only making him sick to his stomach.  Hydrating him would cost me
$300 - not including surgery - & no promises that he would even make it.
So I deceided to put him down.  He was in so much pain.
 
They brought him into the exam room so we could say goodbye.  He was so weak
that they couldn't get a vein to give him the injection.  They said they
would give him gas first - which might be enough - and then they would have
to give the injection directly to the heart muscle.  I am not sure which
they did.
 
Harry was open up by Dr. Shiff today - with myself present.  He had the
hugest mass I have ever seen.  It was in his intestine, but you couldn't
even tell it was intestines.  He had a blockage in there & the intestine
built a scare tissue pocket around it - thus letting feces pass thru the
intestine.  Well, the pocket filled with puss until it finally burst.  He
died from the poisoning of his intestines.  Doc said there was nothing we
could have done for him - even a week ago.
 
Harry will be missed very much.  The saddest part of the whole thing was
that Harry had just gotten the opportunity to go to a new home.  I am sorry
this new home will never have had the joy of having Harry in it.
 
Amy Flemming
Flemming Farms
http://www.geocities.com/heartland/ranch/9521
[Posted in FML issue 2411]