My first ferret: 1993
I grew up in California (70s and 80s) and from the time I can remember,
I loved animals and petstores! I would spend hours in the petstore!
For years and years, I had pet rats. I had a snake and I had a wild
kangaroo rat that I captured myself in Nebraska. I saved baby birds and
hurt pigeons. I left food out for the raccoons. I grew up in a family
that always had dogs and cats. But.....I never had a ferret. I had
never even seen a ferret.

Fast forward to 1993 when I jumped in a van with a bunch of friends
and headed to Tok, Alaska for a summer job. My summer job lasted that
summer, but I never left Alaska. I fell in love with Alaska. I didn't
have to go to a petstore to find animals! I was surrounded my moose,
caribou, porcupines, eagles, weasels, ermine, sled dogs and other
beautiful wildlife. And people had ferrets! I remember meeting my first
ferrets there and I was fascinated. I knew I had to have one.

My first ferret was bought at a petstore in Fairbanks, Alaska. It was
a 4 hour drive from Tok. She was so tiny, and so young. Before I could
name her, she started coming to me when I said "come here little guy",
so I named her L'il Guy. A few months later, I drove the 4 hours back
to Fairbanks and brought home a great big baby boy who I named Rocky
Rockfish, named after a ferret in San Diego who had been killed for
biting a camera man and because I loved watching reruns of Rockford
Files. I was hooked!

I love ferrets! Since then, I have two more in the ground (RIP Rocky
Rockfish II and Missy), two in the freezer (RIP Poppy and Snowball),
and three that still own me (Roxy, Taz and Frostbite). I will probably
always have a ferret(s) in my life!

Kelly Mazzei
Anchorage, Alaska

[Posted in FML 8176]