hello everyone!
 
Just thought I'd share a VERY interesting story with all of you.  I work at
an animal clinic and yesterday while I was working a lady called and said
that she caught something in her kitchen on one of those sticky mouse traps
(VERY CRUEL TRAPS).  Well I told her to bring it in and we'd try to release
it and if we couldn't we'd have to call Animal Control.  (I have experience
with removing animals from these traps because I used to work at a pet store
where they used these to kill mice...well actually they don't kill mice, the
mouse just gets stuck and either it starves to death after a few days or my
bosses would drown them in the toilet.  Well I used to free the mice and
release them outside without my bosses knowing ;) All I had to do was use
water or mineral oil to stop the glue from sticking to the mice and they
just come off.) Well when these people came into the clinic I wasn't
expecting the animal they caught in their kitchen to be a STOAT (ermine)!!!
It's winter here so he was pure white with a black tip on his tail.  He had
the BIGGEST eyes I've ever seen which made him SO cute!!  Well this poor
little guy (he was a boy) was stuck flat on his stomach, including his head
and the skin of his face was getting pulled SO tight his face was
stretching!!  I quickly put on some gloves because I didn't want to risk
getting bitten and I had a girl get me some mineral oil.  I quickly started
at his back end freeing his tail then his legs.  This poor little guy was SO
frightened...he just kept screaming.  I felt SO bad for him..his poor little
heart was beating so fast!!  I got nervous when I got to his head becuase he
was trying to bite me.  After I got him free I washed him off and dried him
(with gloves on of course).  I admired him for a LONG time...everyone I work
with thought i was a wacko becuase I kept saying how cute he was.  He was
JUST like a ferret only SO TINY!!  I wanted to take him home, but I realized
that he's a wild animal and he deserves to be free.  So the people who
brought him in offered to release him outside their house so he would be
close to home.  I still think it's weird that these people had a stoat
living in their house!!
 
Thanks for listening to my story!
--
Truly,
Liz
http://www.norlink.net/~state/liz.html
[Posted in FML issue 1860]