Dear Ferret Folks-
 
Today my husband finally saw Switch using her brand new power-begging
technique for enticing humans to pick her up.  I was sitting in front of
the computer a room away, but I knew what he was seeing just from the way
he was laughing.  The way the laughter got weaker at the end, and I could
hear him slump into the wall let me know that he had finally seen the
Turbo Tail in action.
 
Evidently Switch has been watching us interact with our dog, Allis
Chompers (named for the Allis-Chalmers tractor company, hardly a
man-eater.) She has been watching, and taking appropriate notes, too.
 
Here's how it works.  The dog wants something, she sits down right in
front of us, makes a cute face, and wags her tail.  Switch can see all
of this through the baby cage bars she spends so much of her waking life
chewing on and shaking in impotent rage.
 
Today, as my husband stood in front of the baby cage bars that separate
the ferret's room from the rest of the house, Switch sat down on the
floor, made a cute face, inflated her tail to it's maximum bottle
brushiness, and wagged it back and forth so fast it was a blur.  If she
could have she would have whined "Pleeeeeeeze pleeeeze PLEEEEZE pick me
up!" Just to make sure she was getting her message across, she stood up
on her back feet, pressed her little front paws together, made the cute
face, and let rip with the Turbo-Tail again so that it looked like an
airplane propeller under her butt.  By now, my husband was too weak with
laughter to pick her up, but once he could, he did.
 
She won.  It worked.  Me, I've seen the Turbo Tail in action for a few
weeks, and I've grown immune.  My husband, however, is carrying her around
in his arms going "  Soooo cuuute, your widdle taaaiiiilll, I haff to pick
you uuupp..."
 
Sincerely,
Alexandra in Massachusetts
 
Sabrina the Bat-Biter: "You have no shame, child."
Switch the Kit: "I'm sooo cute, my widdle taaiil, they haff to pick me
uuuupp.."
[Posted in FML issue 3718]