>so i guess my question is this...how do YOU wake up a ferret when they
>are playing that DFS trick on you?  i cant wake her up with noise, she is
>deaf, and wont wake up while being scruffed (that was a first).i dont want
>to hurt her, but i dont want to bring a living ferret to a vet thinking
>its dead
 
Well, you've just joined the "don't I feel like a fool club".  The club
motto is "I'm so glad you're alive, now I'm gonna kill you for doing that!"
Believe me, the meetings are packed from everyone who has been put through
this by a ferret.  For those few of you who have not had the pleasure of
experiencing this, you REALLY CAN NOT begin to understand the panic,
followed by relief, followed by such a feeling of stupidity with the urge
to throttle said ferret with the hand not currently hugging it so tightly.
 
We had a ferret baby whose stomach was so much larger in girth than her
back that she spent most of her time on her back in wierd poses.  She was
nicknamed Roadkill because that is what she looked like as you passed her
cage.  (Her real name was Pudge and she was an innocent doll.)
 
One day I went to let the ferrets out.  Pudge stays immobile in her
roadkill position.  No breathing or movement of any kinda is detectable and
I was looking HARD.  I get her out.  She flops like a rag dog to one side.
I call her, jiggle her.  She shakes and flops.  I yell at her and bounce
her.  She really flops, side to side, back and forth.  Louder more urgent
calls.  Screaming and shaking commences.  I throw her up on the counter
and yell for my son to get my husband.  Through the panic I am trying to
remember if there has been any posts on CPR for ferrets.  (I'm actually
trying to figure this out.) I'm yelling that Pudge is dead.  She is
spreadeagle on the counter (and I didn't lay her on it exactly tenderly.)
My husband (not a ferret person), wants to know what he is suppose to do
about it.  If she dead, he'll go dig a hole.  I'm shaking Pudge and yelling
for car keys (she's still soft and warm, can't have been dead long) to haul
butt to the vet.
 
Lord and behold, the stupid little furface yawns.  She stretches.  She
rearranges herself more comfortably and blinks.  She lifts her little very
much alive face and stares at me over her plump tummy.  Good thing she was
to fat to strangle with that free hand.
 
********************************
Thank you to everyone who has written about Nibs, whether advise or just a
comforting note.  It really does help hold back the funk I'm feeling.  Even
getting posts about the how truelly awful this condition is helps.  Knowing
what can happen is so much better than feeling lost.
 
I'm ordering the Timmy's Tonic tonight and went ahead and got some of the
other ingredients from the health food store.  I'll go ahead and start him
on some of it tonight.  We're going to go full steam ahead with the belief
that he has as good a chance as we make for him.  I'm going to start a
diary on the site for him.  It's going to be a chapter of hope and success
and life.
 
Your emails make me hope, and regardless of the outcome, Nibs will have the
best shot I can give him and the best time until the end.
 
 ***************************************
One last thought....I'm just coming into this shelter as a business concept
posting that apparantly has been bantered back and forth.  HAAHAAHAAHAA.
ROFLMAO.  Oh Man I needed that laugh.  You know my taxman does understand
the point of adopting out a ferret for $25-$75 dollars when you spent
anywhere from $200-$800+ on him and his surgeries.  I guess he doesn't get
the joke either.  (No wonder my husband's not a ferret person.)
 
Deena
Ferrets On the Go
www.webabout.com/fog
[Posted in FML issue 3074]