after 3 weeks away, it's annoying that I can't reply to everything on the
list that I missed (such as why bird+ferret=no,no,bad ferret!)
 
I can't remember how I found out about ferrets.  As a child of the
eighties, I was vaughly aware of them as avant guard exotic pets, but I
can't for the life of me remember actually seeing one untill my interest
was already extreme.  I do remember as a youngster deciding that when I
grew up, I would have either a cockatoo or a ferret.  (This isn't as bad as
my little sister, who I still think hasn't gotten over the wanting a pony
stage)
 
As I got older, ferrets stuck in my mind as a neato sort of pet.  At 11, I
wrote a story which later won first prize in a national children's writting
contest about a pet skunk and his freinds (one of which was a ferret).  I
already had some concepts down: ferrets were weasels, not rodents.  Ferrets
weren't the black footed kind, but another browny kind that I knew didn't
live in North America.  I wasn't sure, but I thought ferrets were probably
at least as domesticated as the pet skunks I knew.
 
In retrospect, it's amazing how much I liked ferrets and assumed they were
neat, freindly pets without actually knowing anything that backed this up.
I finnally met someone who had ferrets four years ago, and I blindly
thought I'd adore meeting them.  Unfortunatly, they kept their ferrets in
the bathroom as opposed to a cage, and I had to 'go'.  The moment I sat
down, 5 weasel swarmed out of the carrier beside the toilet and did what
ferrets DO, which is investigate the pants around my ankle, play in them,
and stand up and sniff me in embaressing ways.  I was really disconcerted,
and apparently my cries of 'Hey, stop that..  get out of there!  Don't
stiff that!  Help!  Help!' were so funny, my freinds decided to leave me
to my fate!
 
I should explain that as a child I was on the recieving end of so many
nasty hamster bites, that I had an unatural fear of the ferrets niping me
while I was over there for the first few times.  People, take note: If
someone who LIKED ferrets was frightened of them, please try and understand
how people who come into a ferret situation would feel..  I've always had
sympathy for them.  All in all, I loved them.  The batch they had died of
old age, and one of accedent, so I became a sort of god-mother to their new
ferrets.  Why ferrets?  Cause parrots fly, sass-mouth and chew antiques.
They make ferrets look well behaved ;D
 
Mel Drake
 
PS Congrats, BIG!  Hope to meet you in person at the Toronto Ferret
Symposium!
[Posted in FML issue 2925]