Greetings ....  This is my first post to this newsgroup.  I'm Megan and my
ferret friend is a two year old sable (lovely silver winter coat!) named
Rocky.  Rocky has been living with me for about two months and I want to
thank everyone from this subscription list and the ferret newsgroup for the
mounds of invaluable information I've gleaned.  Rocky especially thanks you
for filling me in on the very important Raisin Factor.
 
Thought you'd find our recent adventure interesting.  Rocky has a harness
and a twelve foot leash.  On sunny afternoons I take him out to our lawn,
let him play while I read on the patio.  Rocky started digging holes in the
lawn.  Rocky thought it was cool.  So did I.  He had one hole in particular
that he would repeatedly work on every time he was outside.  My housemate
Brigitta and I were sitting on the patio one afternoon watching Rocky's
progress.  Before long only the tip of his tail was sticking out of the
hole.  He dug furiously.  I noticed that he had run out of room on his leash
so I got up and brought the brick his leash is attached to closer to the
hole so Rocky could continue his mission.  Brigitta and I both were under
the impression that he was digging horizontally to connect his current hole
to another he had dug approximately six feet away.  After awhile we started
wondering why he hadn't popped up.
 
We went over and got on our hands and knees and tried to call him out of the
hole.  No movement on the leash and the leash appeared stuck on a tree root.
We shoved our hands in as far as we could and realized that the little
bugger hadn't been digging horizontally, he'd been digging straight down!
After much digging with our hands we realized that the hold Rocky created
connected with an intriquite maze of mole tunnels.  Quite like an
expressway.  The tunnel he dug came back around under itself in a horizontal
U shape, going down...  It was starting to get dark and it was clear Rocky
couldn't climb up the steep clay tunnel.  Brigitta and I made an executive
decision to get a shovel and dig the guy out.  Reaching our arms in as far
as we could we guaged where the drop off was (so we wouldn't hit little
Rocky with the shovel, of course) and for safe measure started digging about
five inches even further from the spot.  We easily connected to another
tunnel and when I put my arm straight down as far as I could reach, I saw
the leash rush farther into the hole and felt Rocky's cold nose make contact
with my hand.  I got a hold of him and helped him up and out of the hole.
 
It goes without saying that now Rocky is still allowed to dig in the lawn
but never for very long in the same hole.  Hindsight is 20/20 and all that,
so ....  for any other lawn diggin' ferret owners, beware...  We were lucky
to have had a happy ending.
 
Otherwise, Rocky is a war dancin', raisin eatin', snugglin' fool -- and
very loved.  ;)
 
Megan
 
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[Posted in FML issue 1382]