Hi Everyone!
 
My name is Heather and I'm new to FML.  I love reading all the information
that's out there on ferrets.  I lived in California all my life until about
three years ago when I moved to Colorado.  I owned two ferrets in California
and can't tell you how neat it was to move to Denver and see all the ferret
stuff in the pet store's and know that finally I could take my ferrets to
the vets and not have to be afraid.  I had no idea their was so much ferret
stuff out there.
 
Enough about me, I wanted to tell a story about our little girl ferret
Salinger (she has a brother Hetfield).  Salinger is going to turn a year old
this month, she's a very petite ferret or was.  Now she's as big as a moose.
So as all ferret owners know ferrets, especially little ones, can literlly
fit into anything.  So with that info on Salinger here goes the story.
About a month ago our apartment manager let us know they were exterminating
the whole complex and if anyone out there has had to do this they know what
a pain in the butt it is.  Of course our biggest concern is for our ferrets,
because they're so young we didn't want to expose them to anything that
might hurt them like the poison the exterminator uses.  The list the
exterminator gave us said if you have small children or pets you should stay
out of the apartment for about four hours.  Well my husband and I decided we
didn't want to take any chances so we decided to rent a hotel room for the
night and just stay out of the apartment all together until the next day.
Seemed like a good idea?  After driving around for three hours we found a
room ( who would have thought in the middle of July in Denver that every
room in town would be booked, I certaining didn't that's why I didn't make
reservations.) The hotel we stayed in wasn't the greatest, but at least we
found one.  So when we got in the room with our two ferrets and our cat
Josie, we did as much ferret proofing as we could in a hotel room and let
the animals roam.  They were having fun and of course I'm extremely nervous
because I was convinced that they would some how get out.  My husband tried
to reassure me, but I've owned ferrets for eight years now and my husband
hasn't so I know ferrets can do anything and probably will.  I finally fell
asleep around six in the morning (I'm an insomniac so that's pretty normal
for me) anyway I was awoken about nine o'clock by my fuzzy little friends,
they were having breakfast.  So I kept an ear open trying to keep track of
them, all the sudden I hear a noise in the bathroom and it sounded like one
of my little ones had gotten into the bathtub, no big deal right.  Wrong I
go into get them out of the tub and don't see anyone but I still hear them,
so I start checking behind the curtain and just looking around for them and
can't see them anywhere but I still hear one of them scratching.  Panic
starts to raise because it is clear to me that one of my beloved ferrets is
under the tub in the wall of the hotel room.  I woke my husband up and he
confirmed what I already knew, our ferret had some how gotten into the walls
of this hotel room.  Of course we freak out, we couldn't see any way for her
to get in there, their were no holes anywhere.  We were both terrified for
Salinger, but we didn't know what the heck to do, we didn't tell the hotel
people we had pets so we didn't want to call them and said "hey, our ferrets
are stuck in your wall".  Since we were on the second of three floors, my
husband realized that once in the wall she could go anywhere, maybe even
another room on another floor.  After a couple more minutes of panic I went
and got one of the ferrets squeaky toys which they love and started
squeaking it.  Thank God Salinger came right out.  She had climbed though
the air conditioner in the bedroom and climbed on though to the bathroom.
Both my husband and I checked the air conditioner for holes when we first
got to the room and didn't find any.  I am so greatful Salinger came out as
soon as I started with the toy, I don't think she liked it in there because
she did come out so quickly.  I have to say I am kind of glad it happened in
a weird way, because I always tell people how careful you have to be with
ferrets because they can get into anything.  But they think I'm exaggerating
and now I have proof, ferrets can get into anything!  Well I can't tell you
how scared I was but everything worked out good.  Salinger is fine and
doesn't speak of her adventure behind the wall, so I'll never know what she
saw back there.
[Posted in FML issue 1655]