My husband I and had an experience last night that was a different kind of
experience only because  we are ferret owners.
 
My husband was working in the basement and thought he saw something the window
well. (The window wells on the townhouses where we live are a couple of feet
deep. Probably about 3 feet or so.) My husband called to me to come downstairs
into the basement since we had a vistor in the window well.
 
Our visitor was black, very furry, and clearly mustaliade! Even though I had
lived most of my life in a rural area, I had never seen a wild mink. They kept
away from people there, but in suburbia I guess they don't have much of a
choice. Since neither of us had seen a mink before, at first we weren't
positive about whether our friend was a mink or an escapee ferret or what.
 
Our little friend was black, all black except for a light spot on its chin. It
had the most luxurious black fur I've ever seen on an animal before. Since it
began to standup scratch on the window when we came over to look at it, we
could tell it was female. It's front feet were broader with larger pads than a
ferret. Its fur appeared to all be pretty much the same length unlike our
ferrets who have longer guardhairs than their fuzzy undercoat. She had a
heavier, longer tail and shorter rounder face.  She was porportioned like our
female ferret, but probably weighed more than our male.
 
After the close examination we could do through the window and some looking a
few different books on N. American wildlife, we were positive that we had a
mink in our window.
 
Now the trick, how to get her out of the window without giving her the chance
to bite us, since she was probably pretty upset. We knew we couldn't open the
window, even if we had a big box over it. Our kids always show us how slow and
clumsy we are when we try to catch them and put them in their cage and they
don't want to go. A wild animal is going to be all the faster and more wiley.
 
We tried putting a board  down in the window well figuring she could climb up
it, but it was too step. So attempt #2, we  got three cardboard boxes of
graduated size, folded in their lids, and dropped them into the window well,
biggest first. Unfortunately, the first box kind of scared the little stinker
and she jumped about 2 feet straight up. We dropped in the other two and she
wasn't too scared by those. We went back in the basement to watch.
 
What do you think the first thing she did was? Of course, she had to climb into
the bottom box, squeezing in through the folded flaps. Our kids have done that
to more than one box! After some exploring, she got the idea and was up and
out. She wandered around a little, probably getting her berings and once she
did, zoom! She was off.
 
I think if we were not ferret owners, we would not have had any questions what
so ever on what it was. We probably would have said, "Yup. It's a mink." But
since we wanted to be sure we weren't turning away someone's pet, we made extra
sure. It made our night! Her's too, I imagine! :)
 
-kim, mike, and
Squirt and Pippi, founders of the Hotel Mustaliade
 
 
 
  Kimberly Burkard          |              _     Everything I needed to know in
  Xerox, Rochester, NY      |       _____C .._.  life I learned from my ferret:
  [log in to unmask]   |  ____/     \___/   Be flexible and go with life's
  [log in to unmask]  | <____/\_---\_\     twists and turns.
[Posted in FML issue 1064]