[Moderator's note: Well, it says 6 Jul 1995, but I just got it! BIG]
 
        hehehehehehhehehehe(I'm still giggling)
        I am house-sitting for a friend and her five ferrets and I noticed
that two of them do a very interesting thing.  One will grasp a tennis ball
with his front paws and hug it to his chest.  Then he will sort of
run/slide/scoot backward with the tennis ball still clutched in it's hot
little grasp.  Both of them do this (not at the same time, of course) on a
fairly regular basis.  It makes me laugh pretty hard as the look on their
faces are always ones of intense concentration.  And they'll both do it for
up to 10 minutes at a time.
        A friend was telling me that she saw a documentary on weasels and
that this is the same method that weasels use to transport stolen bird's
eggs to where ever it is that they would like to eat them.  I guess this is
some sort of "wild" behaviour exhibiting itself in the ferrets, on poor
defenseless tennis balls.  If I wasn't so worried about the possible mess, I
would give one an egg just to see if they do the same thing :)
        So does anyone else's ferrets do this?  Mine look at a tennis ball
as being something far too big to transport with their teeth therefore they
don't attempt to move it.
        Oh yeah...and the same ferret that does this tennis ball trick also
climbs into the bathtub where there is always a tupperware container filled
with water for him.  He submerges his entire head in the water, eyes wide
open, and peers at the drain and sides of the tub through the water.  I
guess he likes the somewhat distorted imagery.
~~Sheena and too many ferrets to write something from each of them~~
Ferrets & Friends Club & Rescue E-Mail:  [log in to unmask]
"dedicated to the preservation of the domestic ferret as a
 household pet", a no-kill, not-for-profit ferret facility.
[Posted in FML issue 1302]