Hi folks!  After the Swedish announcement about
mink sounds botching up sonar did you wonder
about ferrets, Ed Lapinski's finks, or hand raised
minks as Pentagon adjuncts?
 
Meltdown has been home for over 8 days now after
having her enlarged L adrenal and her spleen out,
as well as having a cyst on her colon drained, her
impacted ears flushed and some tartar scraped.  (We
did not ignore her ears or teeth; she's just an
individual who produces copious amounts of wax,
plaque.)  She went into it very strong, looking and acting much younger than her
six and a half years,
and so far the biggest problem seems to be keeping
 her spirits up.  When they flag she falters, stops
 eating and drinking, mopes.  Early on, since she is
alpha we accomplished this by carrying her on
 patrols of the condo.  (Tip to young list members:
when it comes time to buy a home you will have
 money for important stuff like savings, ferret and
 human emergencies, charitable contributions,
 prepayments, etc. if you go for a bit smaller place
than you can actually afford.  We have never
regretted doing so.)  Recently, keeping her happy
has taken other ferret-important forms.  Since
she can't get up quite a full head of musk yet we
allowed her to select a perfume from magazine
inserts (Flore -- it surprised us).  When she doesn't
want to eat or drink she and Steve conspire and
steal from me or from another ferret (or she and I
steal from him or a fuzzy -- Steve's even started to
drink water, which he hates, so she will know that
 she has truly stolen).  Now what we have is a furry
thief who smells of perfume I could never afford to
wear.  She's happy -- that's what counts.
 
Bruce, thank you so very much.  Oscar has been
remembered at Morris A. F.  You have helped us
so very much, and we know he helped keep you
calm during nuisance times with hugs and kisses.
 
Our sympathies to others with losses.  They are one
reason we do try to give to ferret health research.
Maybe someone's loved list ferret has or will be
 helped by those who do so.
 
To the student who wrote the ferret story:  We
would love to see it, but if you have to snail-mail
it we don't want to cost you postage; could you tell
us your address and number of pages and we will
 send a SASE?  We were hungry students once, too.
 
        Hug ferrets and arnold-press dumbbells
        rather than visa-versa,
        Sukie, Steve, Meltdown, Ruffle, 'Chopper,
        Spot, Meeteetse, and Warp
[Posted in FML issue 1117]