Dear Ferret Folks-
 
Tonight was Hedgie bath night, something neither France nor I enjoy.
However, she steps in her own poop, and it gets stuck between her toes.
Plus, I have to trim her nails from time to time, and just generally
give her a visual inspection.  The easiest way to do that is to run a
few inches of warm water in the tub, and let her walk around for fifteen
minutes.  That cleans her feet without any action on my part.  When she
is standing in water, she can't curl up into a ball, (she'd drown)
although she can still curse in an amazing fashion when I grab her little
feet and trim the nails, or massage her all over to make sure she doesn't
have any obvious masses or mites.She sounds like a Robert Fulton steam
engine when all of this is handling is going on.  "I 'ate yoouuuu, yoouuu
are per'verrrttt!"
 
I like to reward her with one of her favourite meals, chopped roast
chicken.  It happens to be one of Ping is He's favourite meals, too.
Well, thank heavens my husband figured out a way to keep Ping out of her
closet.  He finally had to resort to unscrewing the backing plate from
the dryer, and screwing it into the closet doorway to keep Ping from
jumping in there at will when he smelled chicken.
 
Well, Ping must have stolen my credit card and ordered a Bo-Flex machine
that I don't know about, and he's been working out.  It's true that at
one time he couldn't leap that barrier.  Lord, how he tried.  He can
noooowww.....Mr. Mustellid Universe smelled France's reward chicken on
the other side of that steel barrier and he was up and over in a
heartbeat!  I mean, he was Jesse Owens with fur!  Ziiip!
 
Maybe a couple of months of being 'free roam' in a big room has made him
stronger than he was when he lived in a cage, toned him up.  (Sigh.)  I
had to keep him OUT of France's territory long enough to give him his
own personal chicken, which I would have done anyway.  This involved
lots of swearing on my part, and pulling him out of France's territory
REPEATEDLY while I cut up his chicken as fast as I could.
 
I found myself yelling "If you go back in there I will find something
TERRIBLE to do to you!", and I actually looked around, but there was
nothing bad enough handy.  He had his chicken, and half of Frances, so I
had to re-stock For France.  My husband will be home soon, and will be
delighted to be told that Ping now sports a six pack under all of that
fur, yes, he's buff, ripped, and ready to go.  I guess my hubby will be
headed to Home Depot to find some way to keep Ping at bay.  Cinderblocks?
Glass Brick?  Great Wall of China?
 
*amn Pigmy Wolverine.
Alexandra in MA
[Posted in FML issue 4963]