On our Friday am TV spot...
The studio told me "only one person," so I couldn't get half the club in
like I wanted to - drat it all!  I offered the spot to a couple of others,
and they all grinned and politely said something like, "No, thank you, we'd
rather sleep in!" Yeah, right, like they think *I'm* a morning person?
Puh-leeze!  ;-)
 
After some thought I decided to take 4 ferrets: Litje, silver badger mitt
male; Gaoth, the wee sable sprite (1.2 lbs dripping wet); Siobhan, albino
sprite; and Dusty, the "One-eyed Flying WonderFert," honeyed sable male, who
is available for adoption (borrowed from Lea for the occasion).  I took our
son JT with us, to help with the critters behind the scenes.  Turns out 4
ferrets was exactly the right number, as there were 3 anchors and myself on
the set - one for everybody to hold.
 
Got to the station at 6:00 am (Groan!  had to get up at 4:30 to do it!) and
was able to actually sit IN the studio while they were working - gave the
ferrets a chance to sniff around and get a little bored with the smells, so
they were a *trifle* calmer when it was our turn.  They got lots of airtime!
When a segment faded out to the commercials, often they would turn the
camera behind the set and use a shot of JT and the ferrets as the
"fade-out." Dennis the cameraman even took a mobile camera and set it on the
floor, so that the ferrets could investigate - gave the viewing audience a
real UP CLOSE view of fuzzy noses all trying to climb into the camera lens!
He really liked Dusty and let him climb all over the camera and poke his
nose into every nook and cranny that he could find.  He was also very gentle
in removing Dusty's teeth from the cords... Anne Semmer's response was
"Siobhan!  ohhh, my best friend is named Siobhan!  I sure hope she's
watching this morning!  (chuckle!)" and "This Siobhan is better behaved than
my friend is!" Then, the anchors kept asking to "borrow" the ferrets "just
to hold" while they did other segments.... The weatherman wound up with all
four of them around his feet at once during his last segment (and I held my
breath because Siobhan almost went up his pant leg!) We've had a really good
response from the spot; people have called wanting to adopt Dusty, or find
out more about the Frolic and the Club.
 
Our Frolic went very well on Saturday - we had the expected laughs when
ferrets didn't want to escape the paper sack, or decided to camp out in the
tubes during the races instead of dashing out the other end.  The winner of
our "longest kisser" went over 1 1/2 minutes without stopping!  A number of
folks took advantage of our "grooming booth" to learn how to clip nails or
clean ears safely.  We had plenty of handouts on ferret care (I was afraid
we'd run out early...) and handed out a good number of them.  Three
wonderful veterinarians volunteered their afternoon to be there to answer
questions and monitor the ferrets.  I think they had as much fun as the rest
of us!
 
And, the store manager wants to know when they can host our next event!
 (He's threatened to "take out the competition (for host site) with a
bulldozer at midnight!" ROFL!) Channel 7 even sent out a camera man and put
our frolic on the evening news.  Lots of good exposure for the ferrets -
people could see them being playful and social, and we got to emphasize that
these are NOT wild animals!
 
Everyone's ferrets crashed big time afterwards, even sleeping through most
of Sunday.... Hey, PR and looking cute for the camera is hard work!  While
there were a few small problems (and we'll hash these out at our next
meeting this coming weekend) I was extremely pleased at how well the event
went, considering it was our very first Frolic and none of us had ever done
anything like this before.  We've got a really great group of folks in our
Club, and I appreciate all the hard work and help they gave to make this
turn out so well!  Here's a public "Thank You!" to all of them.  I'm proud
to work with these folks!
 
Carla S.
WhyNot? Ferrets
Rio Grande Domestic Ferret Club
[Posted in FML issue 1752]