As we all know there is a house of international ferrets now.  Zen and the
Art of Ferrets (Bill and Diane Killian) have created the first IHOF!  Much
better than the IHOP (American pancake resturant)!  American, German,
English, and Swedish ferrets live there now!
 
Well, it was quite an adventure bringing the three ferrets from Sweden with
me in to the US...  I had been in contact with Bill and Diane thru email and
phone quite a few times before they decided to let me import a breeding pair
for them from Sweden.
 
Not being the right time of year to find ferret kits I had to do some
research in order to find the ferrets (in my opinion ferrets are not quite
as common as pets over in Sweden).  I was lucky to find a person who had
three jills for sale.  All three of them were from the same litter born in
the mid of September, 1995.  I picked out two of them, one for Bill and
Diane, and one for myself.
 
To find a hob for "IHOF" I had to look thru several papers until I finally
found one for sale.  I went to see the ferret and I liked him right away.
He was very calm and also very pretty (I wanted to keep him myself!).  The
owner of this ferret got tired of him after having him for 7 months!
Ferrets are not for everyone!
 
Now when the ferrets were collected arrangements had to be the made with the
airlines (SAS and Continental).  I am very thankful for Bill and Diane
arranging that from the US.  They made a lot of phone calls to get
everything set with the prepayment of the shipping and also to make sure
ferrets were allowed on the aircraft.  It seems like the airlines do not
have much experience of shipping ferrets, and they always seem to think that
ferrets are rodents, argghhhhh how that makes me angry!  However, after Bill
and Diane's many calls and questions, the only thing I needed to do was to
weigh the carrier when checking in, and arrange so I could have it in the
cabin with me during the flight.
 
Finally in the seat of the 767 I found out that all of the cabin crew loved
the ferrets (this made me happy since last time I brought ferrets with me
the crew didn't like them at all).  After telling them all that ferrets are
not rodents and that they make excellent pets I could finally focus on my
"Bailey's on the rocks" (tradition I have...)
 
The flight went well and the ferrets were sleeping in their hammock all of
the time (8 hours) except for drinking,eating, and pooping...  I had the
carrier covered with a sheet so they wouldn't get cold, and so they wouldn't
be disturbed by all the commotion in the cabin.  Another reason for covering
the carrier is that it reduces the smell from it (not all people like the
smell of ferrets) Hmmmm got to think about it...Maybe Bill and Diane's hob
and jill are the first ferrets in the world that are members of the "mile
high club."
 
The customs had no problem with me bringing the ferrets into the US.  They
asked me a few questions like if they were vaccinated etc.  I never had to
show any papers!  They were more curious what the "odd" animals I had with
me were.
 
Last but not least....  I still had to find Bill and Diane....  After
several paging attempts (and hours) I finally found them!  We had somehow
missed each other in the terminal, and now we only had ten minutes before my
next flight to Orlando!  We were lucky, my flight was delayed an hour and
that gave me enough time to hand over the ferrets to Bill and Diane, and
also say goodbye to them and their new ferrets.
 
It's my experience now that importing ferrets is not that difficult.  The
biggest problem is that the airlines don't know much about ferrets.
Hopefully this will change when people become more aware of what ferrets
are, and that they are not some blood thirsty rodents that flip cows and
kill babies...
 
Check out my ferret page, it has some pictures of my ferrets, and also a
picture of a newborn kit from the litter Bill's and Diane's new Swedish
jill came from, in fact it might be their kit! There is also a link there
to my ferret chat server (FCS) if you want to talk ferrets!
 
http://erau.db.erau.edu:80/~erikssol
 
Lars Eriksson,          Daytona Beach FL
[Posted in FML issue 1450]