Although I do not normally post about my ferrets' birthdays, this one is a
little special.  On Sunday, March 23, our Smidgen of Spice (aka Midget) will
turn 8.  Midget is the old lady of our group, and has had a life full of
many close calls and exciting experiences.  My husband always says, "If cats
have nine lives, Midget must have at least 12!" Midget joined our family
when she was only 5 weeks old.  (BTW - TOO YOUNG!!) She was a beautiful
cinnamon panda with eyes that gleamed like 2 dark rubies.  Because of her
young age and our lack of experience with ferrets this young, her first week
with us was a little rough.  Fortunately, we had friends with more
experience then we had, who advised us and helped us through that first
week.  And, although very tiny, Midget was very strong and had a lot of
spunk.
 
From the beginning, Midget was a no-nonsense kind of girl, to the point of
being almost unferret like.  She had 2 speeds, full speed ahead and dead
stop.  As soon as we would let her out of the cage, instead of dancing
around us begging for treats, she would scurry off to explore.  She would
check out every nook and cranny of every room in the house, and would
continue this behavior until she finally dropped into a sound sleep.  We
started referring to her as 'Busy Midget'.  As she would pass us while
making her rounds, she would stop to say 'Hi' and then run off again.  Her
way of doing this was to stop, look up at us, and then do a barrel roll.  We
started calling this behavior Midgie-rolls, and to this day she is our only
ferret that does this.
 
Midget's love of exploring almost got her into trouble several times.  For
one thing, she never grew very large, and could squeeze her little body into
places our other ferrets couldn't get to.  She would then fall asleep, and
we wouldn't be able to find her.  And because she would sleep so soundly,
she wouldn't hear us calling for her.  But at least in these instances, she
was safe in our house, and would reappear when she finally woke up.
 
What posed more of a problem for us was her desire to get outside.  She was
a good climber in her youth, and at that time many of the windows in our
house had nylon screens.  She learned that if she could climb up to an open
window, she could scratch a hole in the screen and escape.  Fortunately for
us, she would usually do this soon after getting up, and we would quickly
notice she was missing and go hunting for her.  After the second or third
time this happened (different window each time) we broke down and got all
new WIRE screens.  We thought our worries were finally over.
 
We also have a large screened in back porch where the ferrets liked to play.
Because these screens were wire, we figured it was safe.  Then one summer
evening, someone forgot to latch the door between the porch and the great
outdoors.  Midget and Shadow (one of our ferret boys) managed to pull the
door open and slip out before it closed.  We don't know how long they were
MIA before we realized it, but probably it was a half hour or more.  We
immediately started searching the neighborhood with flashlights.
 
No one in our house slept much that night.  We put food bowls out in our
yard, and made frequent trips out to search for the runaways.  Near
daybreak, we found Shadow several blocks from our house, frolicking in the
damp grass in someone's front yard.  This gave us some hope we would also
find Midget.
 
By 9:00 am, I was busy phoning all the local vets and animal shelters with
our story of a lost ferret, while my husband made up a flier with Midget's
picture and had it photocopied.  We both stayed home from work, and spent
the day going door to door with our flier, talking to any neighbors that
were home.  Throughout the day we happened on people who thought they had
seen her during the night.  Each time, we would rush to the spot where she
had been sighted, and thoroughly search the area, hoping she had decided to
take a nap there.  But by sunset, she was still missing.
 
Around 9:30 pm, a child that lived outside our neighborhood called to say
she thought she had our ferret.  I rushed over to the house, and there was
Midget.  In one 24 hour period she had managed to travel over 3 miles, and
found some children playing out in their yard.  Realizing she must be
someone's pet, the children had taken her in their house, and offered her
food and water.  Later, at a softball game they had seen our flier, and
called us.  We were overjoyed to have our Midget back, and have been much
more careful ever since.
 
So, Midget has had to be satisfied with exploring just the inside of our
house since that time.  Unfortunately, she has had some other close calls
that were medical in nature.  When she was about 5 years old she developed
an insulinoma.  We opted to have her undergo surgery, even though we knew
that chances were she would develop more.  She came through that with flying
colors.
 
When Midget was 6 years old, we had ECE invade our house.  For 2 weeks
Midget was seriously ill, and we really thought we were going to loose her.
But, she fought back, and recovered almost completely.  It did leave her
with ulcers that periodically flare up, and so we have had to keep a close
watch on her since then.
 
This past fall Midget somehow got coccidia, and again we almost lost her.
During the time she was seriously ill, her blood sugar level dropped into
the 40s.  Our vet put her on a glucose drip, but saw no improvement .  For 3
days she remained in intensive care, and we were almost ready to have her
taken off the drip, and bring her home so we could say our goodbyes.  Then,
suddenly, she improved.  She came home, and was to take prednisone to try to
control the insulinoma that had apparently reoccurred.  However, because of
her ulcers, she started having problems with the pred.  We started to wean
her off the pred, figuring if her time was limited, it should be as pleasant
as possible.  To our surprise, the insulinoma apparently went into
remission.  Midget has maintained an above normal glucose level without
treatment since last November.
 
Midget isn't as peppy as she once was.  She rarely stays up for more then 15
minutes before going off to nap.  But during those 15 minutes she is active,
and runs around the house exploring just like always.  She wants to get up
more frequently then before, and since she likes to sleep in her cage, we
usually leave it open so she can get up when she wants to.  My husband will
occasionally take her outside for supervised outdoor time, and she will
still was dance a little when this happens.  We know that no one lives
forever, and the day will come when Midget will cross the Rainbow Bridge.
And so, we look on each new day we have with her as a gift.  She is a very
special lady to us.
 
Danee DeVore - [log in to unmask]
[Posted in FML issue 1879]