Ok, so I finally found a few free moments to go over the names of our fuzz
butts and how we came to be owned by them.  This may be a little long, but
I thought I'd share anyway!  Enjoy!
 
Tavi (sable) short for Rikki Tikki Tavi, it was my favorite movie as a
child and I had already named my pet raccoon Rikki when I was a kid so Tavi
it was.  She is the first ferret we've been owned by.  We actually bought
her at a yard sale!  $25!  We had been considering buying a ferret, had
talked to the local rescue, checked out the pet stores, etc.  Then one
morning my mother-in-law called us to say that a family down the street
from her was having a yard sale and they were selling there ferret along
with some other pets (snakes, hamsters, guinea pigs, etc. a varitable
zoo).  Apparently the parents of the family were getting a divorce and
neither of them wanted to deal with all the kids pets.  The husband had
wanted a ferret and the wife made a deal that he could have a ferret if she
got a diamond.  Thanks to the divorce she kept the diamond ring and he sold
the ferret.  We bought Tavi as soon as we held her, we ended up carrying
her around the neighborhood for about an hour (more yard sales to check
out), to make sure she was ok, and that it was really what we wanted to do.
I'm glad we did!  She's a sweet-heart!  Gives kisses, likes to cuddle,
loves to play.  Some of her nick names include: sweat-pea and string bean.
Tavi is approx. 5-6 years old, perhaps older.
 
Akimbo (sable) is our second ferret.  Picked him up to keep Tavi company
when we're at work.  He was a sad case at a poor pet store that's no longer
in business (thank goodness!).  We named him Akimbo because when you pick
him up his hind legs stick out like a bow-legged cowboy.  We couldn't come
up with a good cowboy name so we decided on Akimbo, it means to stand with
your hands on your hips, elbows out, it's kind of what his back legs look
like with they stick out.  He also gives kisses and likes to cuddle and
play.  He also likes to steal Tavi's toys and he used to try to eat them,
till we figured out exactly what toys were Akimbo safe.  This guy will lick
your face untill he's down to the bone if you'd let him.  One of these days
I'm going to have to enter him in a kissing contest!  He's much more
muscular than Tavi so one of his nicknames is Brutus.  We also call him
Monkey-Boy because he likes to climb his cage.  Akimbo is about 4 years old.
 
Then we adopted two more sables Mickey and Minnie (already named when we
got them) from a couple who had recently gotten a rotwieler.  They decided
that the BIG dog (more like HUGE DOG!) was more than enough to handle and
that the ferrets weren't getting enough attention and would be in danger
around the dog.  So we took these two Marshall Farms guys in.  They were
not good specimens, VERY skinny, very long, very little muscles.  I tried
supplimenting their diet with vitamins, I tried a couple of different foods
all in the attempt to get some muscles or atleast some weight on them with
no avail.  I even had a friend who worked for Marshall Farms and he
couldn't believe they were from MF untill he checked the tatoos on their
ears.  At any rate, neither of them gave kisses but Mickey liked to curl up
in my lap and go to sleep when I watched TV.  Then just last winter, right
before Christmas Mickey came down with some mystery virus.  In less than a
week he had lost all use of his hind legs, by the time we got him to the
vet his whole body was stiff.  We had to have him put down.  The vet
couldn't figure out what happened to him, she had never seen anything like
it.  The following week we went through the same problems with Minnie,
resulting in putting her down as well.  The vet, to this day, does not know
what happened, she tested them for several things with no results.  Tavi
and Akimbo never picked up any of the symptoms from their cagemates.
 
Augie (cinamon) is our latest adoptee (bringing our gang back to 3).  We
took him in a few months ago, he's about 1 year old now.  He's huge!  When
we got him he had his winter coat and he was almost 2x the size of Akimbo.
Now that he's got his spring/summer coat he doesn't look quite so imposing.
This guy is a complete spaz!  So one of his nicknames is Spaz, we also call
him Psycho.  He loves to romp and dance and play with Tavi and Akimbo and
he also likes to chase the younger of our two cats around, nipping at his
butt and tail (the cat turns around and chases him too -- this cat grew up
around our ferrets, so sometimes he tries to follow them into their dryer
hose toy and behind/under the entertainment center).  He's the first ferret
we've ever gotten before they were one year old or older so it's been alot
of fun watching him grow.
 
So that's our crew!
[Posted in FML issue 2661]