Okay, Spot can definitely come home tonight but his catheter has to stay in
just in case he craps out again.  It will probably come out tomorrow.  Right
now he's refusing to eat so hopes are that he will eat at home.  Guess I'll
do a lot of cuddle-soft-praise-soup-offering; that usually works bets on
him.  Hoping to not have to do any force feeding since his life is hard
enough right now.  The best guess among those looking at his numbers and
history is that folks don't know why last night happened (hopefully a
once-only blip as sometimes happens with humans), that he probably has some
slight kidney damage from getting dehydrated so much with ECE early last
year and from the resulting re-occurent colitis, and that the infection is
most likely intestinal so a new antibiotic routine is being tried.  I'll
tell you, if you can avoid ECE in your house it's not only ECE you manage
to prevent your ferrets having to deal with.
 
Dental Eruption:
 
maxillary: days:  50 C, 53 M1, 60 P 2-4
 
mandibular:  days:  50 C&M1, 60 P2, 67 P3, 74 P4 & M2
 
Thank you for bringing back wonderful dixie cup play memories on a hard day!
We used to keep a stack of them prepunched with air holes for Hjalmar.
 
The San Juan Island ferrets died off on their own after a while.  Don't know
if they were fitch, polecats, or exactly what.  Ask Bob Church after he
returns; he'll know.  The NZ ones do pose a problem.  No one knows how much
of the population is descended from pet ferrets, hunting ferrets, fur fitch
(fur ferret stock), polecats, or a mix, but all are known to have been
released, I gather, and the situation there is one in which there is an
easily vulnerable population of land birds.  Most of the damage is actually
attributed to other animals such as introduced rats, cats, and dogs.  That's
why folks are careful with HI -- fears of a repeat since that state also
has a very delicate ecosystem with vulnerable fauna which has already been
damaged by multiple other introductions.  It doesn't pose a problem for CA,
though, where is an already established preditor in that niche -- one which
out-competes even the wild relatives of pet ferret stock in their home areas
(NW mink were taken to Europe for fur trade and then released causing grave
damage) and is causing them survival probelms in their own backyards.
Releases kill in all sorts of directions.  If you do a search of old FMLs
you'll find Bob's very detailed and well written articles on this topic and
some highly informative pieces sent by knowledgeable folks in NZ.
 
Tired, but looking forward to having Spotty home soon.  Guess I'd better go
paper the bathroom room in newspapers.
[Posted in FML issue 2391]