Hi!  My name is Anne Ryan.  I have been subscribing to this list for a few
weeks now, but time constraints have kept me from introducing myself.  I
live in "beautiful" NJ with my husband, 9 year old son, and six carpet
sharks.  My ferrets are the typical scoundrels who keep me on my toes, and
are so good when they are sleeping!  :-) All of them were adopted/rescued.
Some came in excellent health, others not so hot.  But they are all doing
great now!  Let me introduce them...
 
MAMBO was my first.  He is a MF, chocolate sable, whippet.  He is about 4
1/2 years old now.  We refer to him as a "grumpy old man".  His original
owner had dogs, and Mambo ran around the house with the dogs for the first
1 1/2 years of his life.  He has always acted as if he was a dog, not a
ferret.  He doesn't pay much attention to the others.  Mambo sleeps on my
bed at night, wakes me up with kisses when the alarm goes off, and follows
me around the house.  He doesn't like to be held or petted, but craves just
to be in the company of his people.
 
POOKIE BEAR is a sable male, about 3 1/2.  He has no tattoos.  He carries a
few extra ounces in the butt area, and that gets him into spots sometimes.
He gets stuck halfway when trying to climb into the laundry basket.  Pookie
also has a BIG sweet tooth, and will go to great lengths to get to soda,
candy, cookies, etc., that have been left where he can smell them.  Knowing
that sugar is bad for him, we give him a squirt of linatone after he has
gone to great lengths to get to a glass of soda only to have it swept out
from under him just as he starts to tip it over.
 
PRINCESS PINKY is a female albino, age completely unknown.  We suspect
somewhere between 4-6.  She has only one tatoo- but different from the MF
tatoos.  She has been spayed and descented tough.  She has very poor vision
due to a corneal defect.  She has a tendency to nip, often brought on by
fear.  We are sure that she was abused by a previous owner.  We know that
she had at least two owners before we got her.  She is a beautiful ferret.
She has exceptionally long fur, which is soft as a rabbit.  She spends a lot
of time preening, and likes to "perch" herself somewhere where she has a
good view of things (or as least as much of one as she could with her
limited vision).  She is somewhat of a loner, prefering not to sleep in the
fur pile with the rest of them.  She does very well even with the vision
problem.
 
ROXANNE is my little sweetie.  She loves to be held and petted and carried
around in tthe specail carry bag I have for her with a built in lead to hook
to her harness in case she gets a little too adventurous!  Roxy is 2.  She
is a MF sable (whippet style), with some cinnamon in her as well.  She is
very good natured, and gets along famously with all of the other fuzzies!
 
MOLLY is Roxanne's sister.  She is also 2 and a sable from MF.  She is not a
whippet, and doesn't have as much of the cinnamon coloring in her.  Her
nickname is Lucifer.  I'll let you guess why!!  She has figured out how to
climb onto almost anything, is a terrible theif, and generally has the
wanderlust!  She has great fur- looks like a giant fuzzball!!  She is VERY
smart!!  Knows many words, including ferretone.  She is an absolute terror!!
 
GRACE is Molly's partner in crime.  She is also 2 years old.  She is a
sterling silver.  When we first got her, I didn't think she would live
through the week.  She hadn't been fed in 3 days, had a bald tail, was very
stressed out, skin and bones.  A lot of TLC later, she has grown back much
of the hair on her tail (some rat tail still exists), doubled her weight,
and become very happy.  She also has a nickname- Hellion!  For their own
safety, we have to keep Molly and Grace in the cage when we can not closely
supervise.  They have no fear.  I caught Grace getting ready to jump 5 feet
down off of a tv on top of a dresser she had gotten to the top of.
 
Well, that's about it on my European carpet rats.  Catch you all later!
-Mrs. Duck
[Posted in FML issue 1315]