Hamlet's Story
 
Hamlet was not the name he was first given, but it is the name by which I
choose to remember him.
 
It is not very often that my daughter calls me at work about a ferret.  This
time, though, my then 17 year old felt it important enough that she call me,
just catching me as I was wrapping things up for the day and getting ready
to go home.
 
"Dad, a man just called.  He wants you to come and pick up his son's ferret
right away.  He say's it's outside and it's going to stay there until you
get it." Then she gave me the phone number.  The exchange was in a city to
the north of my home, hardly on the way home, but it was an unusually hot,
sunny, August day for New England.  Temperatures were well into the
high-90's most of the day.  Hardly a day for a ferret to be outside.
 
I called the number.  The man that answered informed me that the ferret was
his son's girlfriend's, that they were moving in with him, and there was no
way he would allow that "animal" in his house.  I told him that I was on my
way, but to please make sure the ferret had water and was in the shade.
 
The drive was about an hour.  The heat in my un-airconditioned car was
almost unbearable, even with both windows down and the car moving along at a
good clip.  I was quite concerned about the ferret out in that heat.  The
directions were good and the house was easy to find, especially with a wire
cage sitting in the middle of the driveway.  The ferret was lying inside,
panting.  No protection from the heat.  No water.  The man was standing
nearby, watering his lawn, totally oblivious to the ferret's plight.  I
quickly moved the ferret onto the shaded lawn, then introduced myself.
 
That had to be one of the fastest surrenders I've ever took.  I didn't dare
stay to talk for fear of my anger taking over.  I did find out that the
ferret's name was Rascal; he was "about a year old"; and "Oh yeah, he has a
collar on his neck that we couldn't get off."
 
We got to my home/shelter in less than a half hour.  The worst heat of the
day was past.  I gave him a bowl of water.  After he drank his fill, I
checked him for dehydration by scruffing him and I noted with relief that
the skin quickly snapped back to normal.  Then I turned him loose on our
screened-in porch to play.
 
Rascal walked a few steps then seemed to shudder and flatten out on the
floor.  After a little while he repeated the movement.  Something was wrong.
 
I picked him up and started to turn him over to check his legs, when
something sharp, up around his neck, pricked my hand.  At first I couldn't
see anything there, but as I separated his thick brown fur I noticed
something sharp and pointed sticking out of his neck, just under his right
ear.  It looked like a piece of white plastic.  Then I noticed something
hard on the other side of his neck, right behind his ear.  It looked like
part of a plastic flea collar - the kind shaped like a ladder with
rectangular holes along its length.  I carefully felt along the front of his
neck.  The collar was deeply imbedded in the neck; well under the skin;
completely covered by it except for the two ends where it had been cut off.
The skin there was oozing and raw.  No wonder he was having difficulty
walking.  Every movement of his neck must have been causing the remnants of
the collar to cut further into the tissue.
 
It appeared that the former owner had put a flea collar on Rascal when he
was quite young and small, then simply "forgot" about it as Rascal grew.  I
can't imagine the torture he must have gone through as the forgotten collar
grew tighter and tighter, slowly strangling him; finally growing so tight
that it literally cut through his skin and into the tissue underneath.  Then
finally Rascal's skin grew over the raw open wound.
 
I called our vet clinic (one which we no longer use) to try to get emergency
surgery.  They agreed to see us immediately.  Once there, our new vet
declared that it was "not an emergency" and that we should come back the
next day during their regular office hours and that they would take care of
it then.  (As I said, we no longer go there in spite of it being nearby.)
 
Joan, the other half of the shelter staff and my wife, took Rascal in for
surgery first thing the next morning.  When we went to pick him up that
afternoon the vet told us that she had never seen anything quite like it.
The tissue had grown up through and around each of the holes in the collar.
She had to carefully cut loose each small segment, ending up with an
incision that went from ear to ear.  It was a long process, but Rascal came
through it well.
 
He looked horrible.  His neck was shaved nearly all the way around and a
good two inches wide.  The incision was red and stitched and stitched and
stitched.  Although we brought a carrier, I choose to carry him in my arms
and hold him all the way home.  He was very quiet; hardly moving for the
entire 15 minute ride.
 
Joan and I talked most of the way home.  I said that Rascal was likely in
such constant pain that he probably had never been able to play or even walk
properly since he was about 2 or 3 months old.  I told her that my hope was
that someday, once he was healed, I could see him do a ferret dance -
flipping and twisting and hopping for joy.
 
Once home, I carried him into the house and set him down on the screened-in
porch.  Rascal took a few tentative steps.  Then a few more.  Then he did
something that still brings tears to my eyes just remembering it.  He did a
real ferret dance!  Not just a little dance.  He flipped and twisted and
hopped and jumped like he was trying to make up for a lifetime of ferret
dances that he never was able to perform.  Then he went over to his food and
water bowls; drank; ate his fill; then went peacefully to sleep.
 
We changed his name to Hamlet.  He was a "new" ferret and we wanted nothing
to associate him with his former life.  Every day he fulfilled my wish to
see him ferret dance.  Every dance brightened my day.
 
Hamlet was shortly afterwards adopted by a terrific couple who had
personally rescued another ferret from an abusive situation.  That was a
little over a year ago.  His new parents report that to this day, Hamlet is
the dancingist, happiest ferret that they've ever seen, and that everyone
who watches him and knows his story can't help but feel some of that joy
themselves.
 
          Dick B.        Support your local ferret shelters
[Posted in FML issue 1567]