Hey!  Yippee!!  Someone else on the FML has a purring ferret.  That makes
three fuzzy purrers (and means I'm sane)!!!  Anyone else?
 
The ferret-pooping cat Wellington: This morning, yesterday morning, day
before that morning... sigh... I forgot to mention he PEES on the ferret
paper, too, 18-pounds-worth cat pee... :(.....
 
First, let me say that those who wrote about my huge cat pooping like a
ferret in corners and elsewhere were quite cheering and encouraging.  Thank
you!  I haven't heard from an animal psychologist, but stories seem to point
to that need!
 
One wrote: "any chance 'your' normal behavior is to wait for your ferrets to
poop in their litterbox and then to pick them up?  If so, maybe Wellington
has noticed and is waiting for you to pick him up."
 
If one of my fuzzies ran from a sleepy corner of my bedroom to poop in a
Townhouse litterbox, I'd shout so loud with glee it would scare us all!  As
a matter of fact, though, when the fuzzies go "off the paper" - I do
sometimes pick them up for a friendly, hopeless, little lecture.  I
guarantee Mr. Wellington hasn't received this treatment.  I have felt guilty
for not picking Welly up more... I love him... but he's heavy as a man-sized
bowling ball and has a double-fur coat (Russian Blue) which flies
everywhere... no excuse, just needs brushing more often, too.
 
As we speak, Welly has crushed himself once again in the small ferret bed in
my computer room - I feel like we're at our second therapy session.
 
Psychological causation has cropped up in a couple other messages.  One
kitty was being babysat by a mother-in-law.  His family fuzzy Fidget was
brought over in a pet taxi for a visit, wherby the cat readily climbed into
the taxi and pooped in the tiniest of makeshift litterboxes.  I think that
kitty was saying, "ready to go home."
 
One replier was ROFLMAO, which is what I am in the morning -- the ROLFing
part -- when I discover Welly's crafts.  Some thought my post good for a big
hearty belly laugh, which is grand, because my morning prance into cat poop
should be good for something.
 
I'm sure this next nice person doesn't mind me quoting from her amazing
story!...
"Hi, I read your FML post and I have had somewhat similar things like that.
I have 5 fuzzies.  I had a cat that over time I guess thought the ferrets
should be hers so she started getting more and more protective over them to
the point where I could not pick them up or even feed them and she started
attacking me and I mean vicious attacks the last time i was left with
scratches all over and 6 stiches and many bite marks so that cat went to my
moms to live and has been fine ever since.  Now the current cat I have had
for about 8 months he loves to play with the ferrets and has one in
particular he favors.  They play and play and the ferret acts like the cat
sometimes.  I have caught the cat in the ferrets cage asleep in the hammock
using there litter box and several other things.  But I have never seen the
fuzzies purr as you explained it.  Cats do the weirdest things."
 
WOW!!!!  And all I have to worry about is ferret-pooping cat!  (Though
Wellington did attack me once after a ten-day vacation.  I'd just gotten
home and was petting him absent-mindedly - cats seem to resent absent-minded
attention - as we sat on the couch.  He went literally wild!  Ended up
chasing me down the hall, him spitting, hissing and clawing my bare legs --
it's true!  - til I lept into the bathroom and locked the door.  When I
gained the courage to come out, he'd calmed down.  I have a healthy respect
for his abilities and never want this to happen again!  So, guys, Respect
your Cat!  (how does that song go?...)
 
Okay, now the clincher.  Things have degressed.  It's happened before, and I
didn't mention it in my pervious post -- hadn't happened for awhile so I
actually forgot, if you can imagine!  -- but this morning was bad and sad.
One of the two corner newspapers in the ferret room (they sleep in the three
wall-sized Townhouses, but the corners are manned and ready for their a.m.
release) was gray-black and shrively looking.  Standing in my thermal long
johns (they down't twist around like a nighty), my hair twisted in a unicorn
pigtail atop my drowsy head, I realized that Mr. Sir Duke Winthropt
Wellington, III, though I hadn't found one rank fuzzy-imitating poop that
morning, had urinated on the ferret paper... leaving not one dry square
inch.  I carried it dripping to the garbage - morning serenity shot - yellow
urine drips decorating my shiny new white cabinet.  Minnie trotted up and I
dashed for a sponge, lest she, too, end up spattered with Wellington's
missive.
 
 ....two days pass... I wrote that two days ago.  Wellington is once more
curled into the ferret bed.  There have been plenty more sightings of fake
RANK ferret poops and one more soaking newspaper (this morning).  What's a
mother to do?!  Change the litterbox (as one responder suggested, and it
needs it, though it won't help much) and love the cat - big ole flaws and
all.  After 16 years, he's earned his idiosyncracies.  Who knows, maybe I
won't even have to change his litterbox at all after awhile?  That's called
"seeking the positive"...
 
Thank you all again for your letters and support.  I now know I'm not the
only ferret-cat mom, and others have ferrets who purr.  That helps alot!
 
Lynn Mc. & the Gang of Seven Fuzz Slinkies and One Fuzz Slug (and, always,
the fuzz guys dooking at the stars - Schroedee, Percy, and Squeeks &
neural-tube sibs)
 
P.S.  Someone suggested Welly may have a bladder infection, which was a good
suggestion but, oh heaven forbid!  He has had a penisectomy (made a great
date story - the looks on men's faces!) for a blocked urethra due to feline
urological syndrome.  He has had a couple bladder infections over the last
ten years since the penisectomy (the vet said you could drive a Mac truck
thru his urethra now & he's never blocked up again) and I tell you, they are
bad.  He pees all over constantly.  That would in utmost certainty begin to
stretch the limit of a loving ferret-pooping cat mom!
[Posted in FML issue 2130]