Ok, I'm one who was going to stay out of this debate, but here I am. I
think the word "fun" is an issue. I believe that word is misleading. I
truly feel that words such as excitement, survival or instinct are more
accurate. Excitement does not n ecessarily mean "fun".

I had a ferret, Hot Shot, who with all of my other ferrets had free
roam of the house. 11 totaled at the time. I fed birds outside the
front door for years. Unbeknownst to me I had a rat living under the
tree that held the bird feeder. Hot Shot, however, knew it was there
and would worry the front door something fierce. He would pace back and
forth, dig or just sit and stare. Finally I just stood and watched out
the window to see what had his attention. Finally I saw it as it poked
his head out of the ground and grabbed seed. I have no doubt in my mine
that Hot Shot would have dispatched that rat in a heartbeat. Not due to
survival but purely on instinct.

I also have two cats. Louie is quite the mouser. I live in a farming
community so I get the occasional mouse. As we all know cats tend to
play with mice before they kill. Louie got himself a mouse and was
doing just that. Well, mouse escaped, cat got bored and walked away.
Enter in my little gal ferret, Rascal. She walked over the spot where
the mouse had been and went into hunt mode. Mouse was under a book
shelf. She flattened down went under shelf, grabbed the mouse, pulled
it out and killed it before I could blink. She gave it a shaking and
that was it. It all happened so fast I was amazed.

None of my other ferrets paid any mind at all. Not even my Bradley who
had been raised outside all of his life until I received him at 5 yrs
of age. In nature the best hunters and killers are the ones to survive.
Nature is not always pretty and pleasant but it is what it takes to
survive in the wild. Nature never ceases to amaze me even when it is
what we consider nasty. But humans are no different when instinct kicks
in for survival. Just how I see things.
 
Terry and 8 Happy Little Scampers

[Posted in FML 6225]