Four years ago, we bought our first ever private-breeder ferret. Almost
all our ferrets have been rescues, and we were hoping for genetic
diversity and temperament and all that. So we bought Leeloo. She
certainly has a lot of personality, a ton of genetic diversity
(including New Zealand, as I understand), and is an absolutely great
people ferret. We're absolutely in love with her. We want her to have
a companion, but there's a backstory, so I apologize and I hope you'll
bear with me. :)

The problem is that Leeloo seems to be amazingly territorial. It took a
*lot* of work, but we got her to accept another of our girls, B'Elanna.
But, after sharing the same cage and playing together for *months and
months*, all it took was one three-day separation for Leeloo to act
like she'd never seen B'Elanna before. She attacked her. We had to put
B'Elanna back with the others, who all got along fine. This type of
rejection confuses me. I've only seen it before with wild animals like
meerkats.

After B'Elanna crossed the bridge, we tried to integrate her with Jazz
and Luna, our remaining boy and girl. Luna fought with her a lot,
screaming and squealing and neck-biting and shaking and all that. I
would never have put them in a cage together. As for Jazz, Leeloo just
*terrorized* him, and he never tried to fight back despite being a lot
bigger than her. He just hid and shook, and I felt terrible. We decided
after a fair amount of time that we couldn't in all fairness continue
to make Luna put up with the fighting and Jazz with the bullying, so we
separated them for good.

Now we only have Leeloo, and for all the world she seems lonely and
bored. Even though she never came into direct contact with the others
after we gave up, she was often interacting with them through the bars
of the cage, etc. We give Leeloo all the love and attention in the
world, we let her run freely in the living room with us for hours at a
time, and she really *wants* to run and play. But some of the wind just
seems to have gone out of her sails since we lost Jazz a while ago and
then Luna just over a month ago.

We really want her to have a four-legged companion of the ferrety
persuasion, and I may be off base, but I really *do* get the strong
sense that she wants one of her own kind, too. I just have no idea how
to accomplish that. If we try to get her a companion, we can't get a
kit, since I'd worry for the kit's well-being. If we got an adult, we'd
be in the same position as with Jazz and Luna. No matter *what* we do,
I seriously doubt she'd take to *any* other ferret right away, but I'm
willing to work. However, anybody we bring home would be getting a
forever home from us, so I'd hate to have to declare it a failure and
separate them into two cages. Then we'd have to take care of *two*
onlies, so two would probably soon become three since we'd have to
get a companion for the second ferret. Ferret math is insidious.

It's so tough to explain -- Leeloo just isn't as happy as she was when
there were other ferrets in the house, even though she fought with them
and pushed them around! Does anyone have any suggestions? Or is it time
to give up and just try to keep her as happy as we can on her own?

-Natasha

[Posted in FML 5719]