In 1996 I lived in Rancho Penasquitas California, and I wanted another
raccoon.

As a child my mum owned a pet store, and it was our life as well as our
livelihood. For me, it was always about animals, and not just the ones
we had at our store, but the ones we would find leashed, crated or
boxed and left on our door steps by people who knew we would do the
right thing by them.

1966, I was 6 then, and pretty good at taking care of the houseful of
furry siblings we had. It was Father's Day, and my mum presented my dad
with a baby raccoon. He was so tiny, and so very precious and we all
fawned over him, like anyone would who had a new baby arrive in their
home. Dad named him Black Bart, after some cowboy he'd seen on the TV
show, but we just called him Bart. Bart was more then a pet, he was
my baby brother. He had to wear diapers and be bottle fed, and potty
trained and everything else that goes along with having a baby. He
slept in bed with me, or my brother or sister, or in the full laundry
basket my mum had in the hallway. He loved bubble baths, sneaking
snacks out of the fridge at night, or doing his best to keep us awake
to play with in the wee hours of the morning. He knew how to get
himself outside to go to the bathroom, to bother the neighbors dog, to
go sliding down the immense slide that led into another neighbors in
ground pool, or just to cruise the neighborhood and visit with friends,
both animal and human alike.

I loved him very much.

One day my mum and dad made the difficult decision to have him declawed
so that it would cut down on some the "trouble" he could and had been
causing to a few of our neighbors who did not appreciate his antics.
That decision took him from us, from me. During the surgery, his lungs
collapsed and despite every effort to save him, he died anyways. We had
a swamp cooler in our home, and when it was warm out Bart would lay on
our dining room table to get the maximum breeze, what we didn't and
could not have known is that as he lay there cooling off, water was
slowly collecting in his lungs and when he was put under anesthesia,
that water filled his lungs up and caused the collapse. I was broken
hearted for years, because I didn't just lose a pet. I lost my little
brother, my best friend, and my constant companion.

May 1996, 30 years later, and I am sitting in front of our computer
looking into adopting another raccoon, but I find that the laws have
changed and that unless I am either a zoo, or a college with a
substantial animal husbandry program, and I can not qualify for a wild
life license required to have a raccoon. Needless to say I was upset,
but I not willing to stop at being told no.

I entered two simple words in the search engine, "raccoon like", and
found "ferret". I also found that I could not have one if I lived in
California, but that did not stop me from doing my research on these
adorable little fellows. I did nearly one year of research on them and
during that journey I found the FML. It didn't matter to me that I was
not a ferret owner, all that mattered was that I would be among people
who would became good friends, who answered my questions, shared their
stories, struggles, food choices, health care and everything under the
ferret sun & moon with me. All of this, and not a single fuzzholio in
my home.

September 1997, we move to Missouri, and even before we have a house,
we have our first two ferrets, Hobbes & Bear, and the rest, as they
say, is history.

I love the FML, it's my "go to" place for everything ferret related.
It has good people with big hearts, good advice, funny stories, sound
information, and even Bridge Greeters for when that time sadly comes
around, but even then, even with sadness, their is love, comfort and
support is always there, and no matter what, it is another home for me.

Thank you Bill for creating such a wonderful place for everyone to
come to.

(((HuGs)))

[Thanks for a great intro. I didn't "create" the FML... just keeping
it going for now :-)  BIG]

[Posted in FML 8173]