When living in Berkshire most of the ferrets I rescued were working
ferrets and for me jills could be kept easiest to keep as I was under
the impression that hobs could not be kept together, which I now know is
just not true.
 
This incident happened in the 70's and I had a guy come to my place to
buy an albino hob which I was trying to find a home for and the next
evening when I went to feed my animals I found that a number of ferrets
had gone also a trio of chinchillas and some rabbits.
 
I phoned the police who said they would make a note of it and the police
officer in charge of the case was ####, I rang around all the rescues to
find out if anyone had acquired any new ferrets or other animals I also
rang the guys who had had ferrets from me in the past and unbeknown to
me I also rang the guy who had taken my animals.
 
After speaking to one or two of the guys who got their working ferrets
from me a name and address came up, I phoned the police to say that this
Mr 00000 who lived in a certain street off the Oxford Road in Reading
but all I got from this copper was that ferrets and the other pets were
cheap so stop wasting his time and basically "get a life" so I went away
thinking I could do no more.  But then I had a call to say that the guy
had sold the rabbits and chinchillas and was moving the ferrets, so with
this information I went back to the police station and asked if they were
going to do anything and again I got the reply of "get a life".
 
Once again I thought I could do no more but I thought why should these
people get away with it so I asked to see the officer in charge and
explained that I had done lots of phoning around trying to find my
animals, the copper in charge of my case was not happy about that and
so with a WPC him and myself in a police car we went to the address at
which I told him he would find the ferrets.
 
We arrived at a property and the officer went into the back yard to see
how many ferrets were there, he came in to ask me to describe some of my
ferrets and as all the jills I had kept were albino I didn't think about
the albino hob I had sold the guy at that address which worked great on
my part, so the officer said that there was only two ferrets out there
and all the other cages were empty.
 
Leading the way he walked out into the back yard and there was the hob
I had sold the guy along with a jills, my first word was that's my
ferrets!, the police officer wanted to know how I could tell and all I
said was for him to open the cage door and see who the ferret went to, I
was very confident about the ferret coming to me.
 
The police officer stood by the cage and opened the door, the guy who
lived at the address started rattling his car keys and banging them
against the wall, all I did was make a soft squeaking noise and within 30
seconds I had a ferret leaping about doing the ferret war dance and at
this point I was kneeling on the floor, so after another 30 seconds the
hob ran up my coat onto my shoulder and started digging in the top of my
head.
 
The police officer was not impressed and I was asked if I wanted to press
charges, my reply was that of cause I did and the ferrets where taken
away and the guy was arrested.
 
When the case came to court the guy was ordered to hand back all the
ferrets and pay compensation for all the animals he had sold or he would
end up in prison.
 
Now when I have written about this incident in the past people like
crompton and her mates have tried to make out that it was all lies and
a case of stolen ferrets would not have ended up as a court case, but I
can say that it is all true.
 
The man with a new idea is a crank until other take it up
Mark Twain
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/intact-ferrets/
http://www.smartgroups.com/groups/house-ferrets
http://www.geocities.com/houseferrets13uk/First_Page-Index.html
Come see some of my hobs and jills
http://www.geocities.com/houseferrets13uk/Some_of_my_jills.html
Some of our fund-raising events
http://www.geocities.com/houseferrets13uk/Show.html
[Posted in FML issue 5140]