I lost something today (06/20/05) that was very important to me, I lost
my little Rosie.  We got Rosie 05/20 from Animal Control about an hour
away from us, someone had seen something about her on Pet Finder's and
approached us about taking her, Rosie had been turned in to Animal
Control as a stray.  Rosie had adrenal disease and the director had made
the statement if she was not claimed or adopted right away once she
became available; she was going to be put down.  She became available
for adoption on May 21st and we went and got her on May 27th.
 
Animal Control was aware of the fact we wanted her and knew about the
adrenal disease and seemed to be a bit surprised that we were willing to
take her with the adrenal disease.  On 05/20/05 we went to get our little
Rosie and as I was carrying her out of there in a beautiful new sleep sac
just for her, I promised her a better life and all the love a little
ferret could handle.  We had no idea what her name was and I named her
Rosie for her sweet and rosy personality.
 
The following week somewhere, somehow her previous owners found out she
had been at Animal Control and had been adopted by John and I.  To make
a long story short, all hell broke loose.  The woman called me and left
a message on my machine, and I called her back and she indicated to me
she wanted her ferret back.  I said okay...... but first I had a couple
of questions I needed answers to before letting her go.  I asked why
her adrenal disease had been allowed to go on for so long and my other
question was why had they not tried harder to find her.  I found out
later that from the time Rosie came up missing until she was turned into
Animal Control was a full two weeks and how this angel survived on the
streets, I will never know.  When I asked the woman those two questions,
she basically went off on me.  I tried talking to her again later in
the morning and instead I got her husband.  I presented the same two
questions to him and pretty much got the same reaction as I had gotten
from her.  He then told me if we thought Rosie was in bad shape, we
should see another one they had, it was in much worse shape.  The guy
then threatened me..... I called Animal Control and spoke with the
director and told him what was going on.  All the paperwork was looked
over closely making sure the proper number of days had elapsed before
we adopted her and everything was as it should be and it was a legal
adoption and Rosie was ours.
 
Later that day I heard from their vet, Dr. T. called me and leaned
pretty heavily on me to give Rosie back to them.  To begin with I didn't
appreciate him getting involved with all this and he basically called me
a liar when I told him of the conversations I had had with the husband
and the wife.  Again, he more or less told me I was lying about them when
I told him the husband had threatened me.  I said fine, you call em then.
But in that conversation, Dr. T. admitted to me they had done little to
nothing to try to locate Rosie.  They did call Animal Control 3 times in
that 4-week period but neglected to leave a name or phone number just in
case someone brings in a stray ferret.  Dr. T. their vet called them and
they went off on him so he said he wanted no more to do with the
situation.
 
We took Rosie to our vet and she had her pre-op exam on May 27th and
surgery was scheduled for today June 20th.  That was the soonest
appointment we could get for her for the surgery so today was the big
day.
 
Doc said when he opened her up; she was a mass of tumors.  She was
bilateral adrenal and there was such a big tumor on her right adrenal
gland, it had wrapped itself around the vena cava.  He got the surgery
completed but while Rosie was in the recovery phase, she began having
problems.  He still had her on the vent but her heart stopped and doc
said he worked for 30 minutes trying to bring her back but her little
heart could never hold a rhythm.  Rosie was ours for just over 4 weeks.
This beautiful little stranger who drifted into our lives and then out
again, I miss her so much already.
 
We normally stay at the vet when one of our ferrets is getting something
done but this time we decided to come home and wait for doc to call us
and then go back later in the day and pick her up to bring her home.
Doc assured me Rosie was in no pain and she was a happy little girl with
us.  But as he also told us, Rosie would have been getting into serious
trouble right away from the right side wrapping itself around her vena
cava.
 
For the life of me, I will never understand how she made it on the
streets for 2 weeks.  Why were we the ones who agreed to step forward
and take her??  We knew we were already facing more than a few hundred
dollars on the adrenal surgery and as we all know, as ferrets age, just
like us, things begin to go wrong.
 
We had taken in another fuzzy, Jewel who was thrown away by her family
along with 10 cats and kittens.  The manager of our local animal shelter
contacted me and asked me if we would consider taking her or even taking
her as a foster until she could get a forever home.
 
Jewel is 6 years old and had been an only ferret and she went into
shelter shock almost immediately and I worked day and night for about 2
weeks force feeding her and forcing Pedalyte.  When we brought Rosie
home, all the other ferrets picked on her so I thought hmmm, wonder if
this will work and I tried Rosie and Jewel together and they were a
match.  Almost every morning I would find them sound asleep all tangled
up in one another's arms and snoozing up a storm.  Rosie and Jewel were
very very good for one another and I don't know what this is going to do
to Jewel; just as she had made a friend, found out what it was like to
have a buddy, Rosie was taken not only from us but from Jewel as well.
 
A few people told me I was wrong for not giving her back but the majority
told me they felt I was doing the right thing.  When I thought long and
hard about it, my heart kept telling me not to send her back to those
people.  We knew from the get-go we were going to have to lay out some
bucks on this little girl, if all we wanted was just another ferret, we
could have gotten one that was healthy.
 
As silly as it may sound, I made that little girl a solemn promise and
I intended to keep it.  I would like to think we bought her 4 weeks of
happiness; she sure brought a lot of happiness to us.  Aside from loosing
her, one thing about Rosie really got to me; she wanted more than
anything to be with the other ferrets, sleeping, snuggling, and playing
with them but the others were pretty rough on her so we had to keep her
separated from them.  Rosie would work her little self silly to get out
of the room where I had Rosie and Jewel, she would go right back among
them trying to be accepted, unfortunately they would not accept her and
I would hear her and go running to rescue her.
 
Rosie had the most peaceful expression on her little face, in fact she
looked like she was asleep and having a good dream.  I had John to check
her over to make sure she was gone, I swear I saw her whiskers twitch a
couple of time.  I gave Jewel time to say her good-byes as John was
getting the spot ready.  Jewel took a very long time saying goodbye.
 
We buried her across the driveway where the others are buried and I told
John I want to put up a rose treless and plant some climbing roses so I
will see evidence of life instead of death when I look out my office
windows.
 
Rosie, we love you and miss you very very much BabyGirl.  I guess it
wasn't meant to be but we sure loved the dickens out of you in the 4
short weeks we had you.  Rosie, you blessed our lives with your presence
and we will never forget you.  I can't begin to understand why you were
sent to us, why we were put directly in your path.  There has to be a
reason we were drawn together and it lasted such a short time.  Maybe I
will find out the reason some day.  In the meantime Rosie, I think Jewel
is missing you a lot, maybe you can visit Jewel in her dreams and help
her to keep on wanting to live and if you have the time, I would live
to have you in my dreams.
 
Goodnight sweet angel, we love you very much,
 
Mom and Dad
 
~ To live in a lighthouse with a thousand ferrets ~
http://www.tuffyncompany.com/index.htm
The nice thing about being senile is you can hide your own Easter eggs.
[Posted in FML issue 4915]