[2-part post combined.  BIG]
 
It is the first time I have had to deal with the loss of two ferrets just
days apart.  Last Wednesday, our little Zsa-Zsa, pure white with shiny
bright eyes, was found in her favourite sleeping box, having left this
earthly plane.  We had seen her the night before when dad had picked her
up and cuddled her, and then placed her protectively in front of the food
bowl so that she could eat in peace.  She seemed happy and normal
although slower in her old age.  We can only assume how old she was given
we got two very different stories about how old she was.  But when I look
at her teeth, which were clear in appearance, I can safely say she was
older than 6 and quite possibly closer to 8.  In either case, it matters
not, for her loss will be felt within our home regardless of her age
status with us.
 
Zsa-Zsa was a little lady... she had a very sexy little walk when she
toddled off somewhere.  She loved to play with your hand and would do so
at the drop of a hat.  As she got older, her play was more subdued but it
did not stop her from wanting to be held and cuddled at any chance she
could get.  She loved to be carried and shown new stuff that was higher
than she could reach.  She was simply a quiet little darling who kept
pretty much to herself after losing her three best buddies in this last
year.  Chook left us last year, and Bella died on the operating table
earlier this year, with Lace following a couple of months after that.
These deaths left her without a companion until recently, when a new
young male came to the shelter.  He didn't seem to mind her whiny yelps
as we had caught the two of them together on at least one occasion.  It
would have developed into a new friendship, as I am sure, but now it will
remain to be unseen forever.
 
As it happened, Zsa-Zsa came to us with a bald tail and it took the two
years she was with us for it to finally fill in.  In the first year, she
proved that she could grow hair there, but not on the last inch of the
tip.  Then, a month or so ago, it all came in.  What bothers me about it
is that Lace did the same thing.  She too came with a bald tail that
filled in completely just before she died.  An odd coincidence....?
I'll never know.
 
Zsa-Zsa loved her fiber fill bag which she took on as her own.  And we
cleared out our bag recycling box to replace it with the fiber fill bag
just for her.  She loved it and we wanted her to have a spot she could
call her own.  And she did... I will always remember Zsa-Zsa with her
feisty spirit and quiet demeanor, but I will never look at a bag of fiber
fill without thinking of her.
 
And then Saturday morning, Ping, our beloved blaze, came to me as I slept
on the couch, having had a long night and a lack of energy to climb all
the way to bed.  I got up, fed her, and then cuddled her on my chest to
allow her to drift off, while I too drifted off into my own slumberland.
When I awoke, she had moved on.  The day was an unusual one as a dear
friend was leaving for good to a foreign country and it was a tearful
reunion and departure.  I fretted after she left not finding the special
gift I had wanted so badly to give her.  My thoughts were geared towards
the other part of my life as Ping's life was unknowingly slipping away....
 
We found her hours later, in her sleep box, barely moving.  We flew into
emergency mode, giving her fluids and karo syrup.  trying to buy her time
until we reached emergency.  She did not respond.  Breaking a number of
road rules, we raced her dying body to emergency where the vet felt that
she would not survive the night.  She felt tumors in her belly and by her
vitals, she ws certain that even if by some miracle they were able to get
her stable, that the inevitable would still need to be faced.  Minutes
felt like hours as we agonized over what to do over our little girl...
wondering if we were indeed doing the right thing.  We finally made the
tough call and held her as she slipped away through her last injection...
 
Ping was only four.  She was one of the few ferrets we ever bought from
a pet store.  She was named after the lead character in Mulan, as she
was sold to us as a boy.  Fate brought us together when Bear, our other
female, lost Tinder, her only buddy, and had gone into a deep depression.
Bear did not consider our two other ferrets, Chook and Taero, to be
Tinder's replacement, and so we knew we had to find her another friend.
The SPCA had no ferrets.  We knew of no other place to get any... the
ferret shelter I now volunteer for was not as visible then as it is now.
We felt we had no other choice.  We went to a pet store and found her and
her sister.  Dad fell for Ping and I fell for her sister, Mushu.  We left
with the two and Bear ended up loving her new friends.
 
Ping and Mushu were inseparable... I worry so much for Mushu now for
there is no one that she has buddied up with.  She is my little girl, but
I am no ferret.  Hard to believe there isn't one she could find as a
friend in our home of 27.  This morning she came to me as she always does
in the morning, only this time she was without Ping, who would tussle
with her on the bed as their way of waking me.  She seemed lost... and
somewhat confused.  I cried for her, for her new circumstances.  I worry
for her so...
 
As for Ping... I will miss her hissy fits.  She was the hissiest ferret
we ever have known.  She communicated with us through her hisses more
than any other ferret, and she seemed to have so many more than normal.
I swore that if she were a person, she would be a black woman, because
she had so much attitude.  I can see her now, snapping her fingers and
shaking her head in just that black woman way.  Ping loved to chew on our
knuckles, something that I am grateful for having her.  I know in my
heart that if anyone else had adopted her from the pet store, that they
may not have accepted this behaviour and returned her to the store alone.
When I think of her being adopted by a person who didn't take the time to
understand her, I picture her going from home to home.  And so I am so
very happy that she was with us, people who loved her for her being her,
and accepted her owly, PMS'ing ways.  There will never be another like
her... one of a kind.
 
And so, we lost two dear friends within days of each other.  It's hard to
imagine that the heart can heal from such a gaping wound they have left.
But we know we must go on, for there is a housefull of little souls and
feisty spirits just waiting to share with us their gifts and blessings of
their existence.  And so, we go on... for them.
 
Goodbye my little ones... and give 'em hell up in heaven.  That place
needs a little shaking up every now and again, and you two are the ones
to do it in your very own special ways... We miss you more than we can
bear....
 
Loving you always,
betty and james and their blurs o'fur
for the love of ferrets
[Posted in FML issue 3901]