Hey Howdy and happy New Year to all
 
  Just a couple of things to bring up for the new year....
 
1. A ferret and her owner made the FRONT page of the Evansville Courier
   on December 23...just a pic and a couple of lines.  Apparently the lady
   had taken it to the mall to get some last minute shopping done.  Although
   it wasn't a close-up of the animal you can tell that its a ferret and
   it was identified as one....cool!
 
2. Maybe this falls under the commmon sense files, but for any of you out there
   that may own reptiles and fuzzies, a lesson that I learned the hard way this
   past week was that you should always wash your hands after handling a ferret.
   Putting my fuzzie away in his house, I approached one of my Burmese Python
   cages to make a change of water and other things, now normally she lets me
   go about my business uninterupted, but I guess ferret smells enough like
   mice. So she took a taste of my hand, only two fangs punctured, and no ones
   the worst for wear.  The only reason that i suspect that it was the ferret
 smell
   is that she has never struck at me before and she hasn't since. Note: I have
 washed
   my hands quite thoroughly prior to any snake handling (a common sense measure
 i no
   longer ignore).
 
3. Theres nothing more humorous than seeing a ferret barreling top speed and
 hitting
   linolium (sp.), mine discovered the kitchen floor this way and seemed to love
 the slide
   repeating the process numerous times.
 
4. I was curious as to the cause of a thing I noticed over the Christmas
 weekend, I had
   taken Rat with me to my parents since I was there for the weekend. Now I knew
 he hated
   his pet carrier and all, so that may be the problem, but anyway....every time
 he would get
   out, his tail hair would be standing straight upand would remain that way
 until he had been
   out for awhile and I picked him up....new surroundings or did I miss
 something in the FAQ?
 
Happy New Year to all,
Ian and Rat
[Posted in FML issue 1063]