SAGA OF THE FERRET RESCUE. A LONG POSTING.
 
Thursday afternoon, running a quick errand to buy food for my two ferts
William and Winona at the grocery.  I stop at the pay phone to pick up a
message I'm expecting from a printers (I'm a graphic designer, and I often
get calls w/ half hour's notice to come look at blueline proofs for a
project about to go on press).  Well, what message rolls forth to my
astonished (too busy) ear, but a call has come in but minutes before from a
sweet, concerned young person at a local pet store I'd brought fert info.
and faxed biting incident bulletins to.... she has my number (I'd left my
card), and says there's a woman in the next town just called: they've been
sighting a ferret for the past two days hanging around the house & garage,
approaching everyone, but they're afraid to touch it, but want it to be
saved.  It's in the garage now, and is there Anything That Can Be Done?
 
I hear myself asking the pet shop girl for the woman's name and number (the
bluelines at the printers will have to wait).  BUT I've never done anything
like this before, ever, and I'm not sure what I'm GOING to do, but I know
I'm going to DO Something....
 
I call the woman and introduce myself as from the Ferret Friends (quick
switch to another 'hat,' try to sound official and able to cope... I
swallow, hoping she doesn't hear me.) She tells me, yes, they've been seeing
it, and she's pretty sure it's a ferret ... 'Yes, well, I remember from that
movie, Kindergarten Cop... and it looks like that.... Only now one of the
kids went out to check on it, and it ran out of the garage and back into the
adjoining woods' (!) Another fleeting chance to say, oh, well, oops, never
mind, then, huh?  It's lost for sure now..... But I CAN'T.  Again I hear
myself saying to her, 'I'm going to pick up a havaheart trap and I'll be
there as quickly as I can' I have NO IDEA WHERE I'm going to find a
havaheart trap.  Only know that I MUST.... (mind races: borrow from a vet,
buy on plastic from a hardware... fallback: run home and get one of my own
carriers!!) Only the Little One is in the woods now, and ... I hear the
woman saying, 'Oh, yes, I've also called the police and they tell me the
animal control officer will be along by 4.  What should I do if they call
back or come?' Official hat goes on, I say (like AS IF this happens to me
every day!!!!) 'Well, if you've contacted them, go ahead and tell them to
come on ahead' (brain says: authority confrontation?  liability?  who has
jurisdiction?  is the control officer going to be a jerk?)... And another
chance to just 'bag out' and say, 'oh, well, then, this'll be handled by
Someone Else and I can get back to my job and my deadlines, and.... but I
CAN'T!!  I look at my watch.  It's 3:35.  I get directions jotted on a scrap
of paper.
 
Next stop, the nearest vet's office (which I happen to know is right nearby
because I've been leaving ferret info.  at all the local vets!).  They have
no havaheart traps, but think maybe local humane society outpost has 'em.
Wonderful, helpful receptionist calls them for me, confirms there IS one!
More scribbled directions to a place I've never been.  Try to get pointers
on how to handle a feral, possibly wounded animal.  Oh, yeah, the woman had
also mentioned she thinks it's got a cut on it.... Receptionist tells me
'you've got to go because they're closing in five minutes!' Get to the
shelter and the trap is ready.  $20 deposit.  Who cares, now.  The Rescue is
in motion, and it's a race between me and Mr. Animal Control.
 
Next stop, a home in suburbia on a hot sunny afternoon.  I walk up the
driveway and it's a semi-circus!  Mom, Dad, the Kids, the Cat....
everybody's standing there in the driveway... and the animal control officer
has just arrived.  I stride forward, saying 'Alright, what's our situation,
here?' I can't tell whether he's joking or not (that dry, New England humor,
you know) as the officer looks me in the eye saying 'Well, we were just
going to shoot it.' I'm Somebody Else now, not missing a beat, I say flat
and straight, matter of fact and non-confrontery-like 'Well, I think we can
avoid that.' Turning to the woman who I spoke to, I say (this rehearsed in
the car on the way over, mind you) 'Can we have two bowls you don't mind
giving up, and an old towel that you don't care about, either?' Thinking
Tiny is in the woods and only setting the trap will save her now.... 'I've
got a havaheart trap in my car, I'll go get it..' I come back from the car,
and all these people are heads-cocked listening at the side of the garage...
'We think we hear something in here!' 'Stand back,' says me, having also
grabbed a pair of gardening gloves in my frantic preparatory rounds... more
to embolden myself than with thoughts of some huge, vicious beast!  Set down
the cage, pull on the gloves.  'Stand back, everyone' in a quiet voice.
'Should we close the garage door!' 'No.  Just stay back.' Furtive rustling.
There!  On top of a plastic trash bag at the side of the garage a tiny
masked face peers back at me from the shadows.  Stifling the urge to start
baby-talking to the Tiny Lostling like a besotted ferret mommy, I instead
approach gently, low voice, slow, the wide-open garage door just feet away
and the great, bad, lost-outdoors yawning to receive this little sprite:
'Hello, my little one... look at you...' She comes toward me (oh, blessed
ferret-curiosity!) and I simply pick her up like any one of my own.
 
THE PRIZE!  THE SWEET BABY!  in my heavily gloved hands she gazes back at
me, wide-eyed but calm, hind feet akimbo in the air, what they'd thought was
a cut turns out to be a tick latched to her skin over her left eye...
 
Gently into the cage (with the kitty food I'd bought less than an hour ago,
meant for someone else)... and Tiny immediately begins to eat voraciously,
pausing only to drink, drink, drink the cool, lifesaving water in the hot
day...
 
Straight to the nearest vet and we pick 15 ticks from her, observe a chipped
tooth.  She is a gentle lamb, doesn't even TRY to bite anyone.  Vets
well-meaning but clearly haven't seen a lot of ferrets, but they do SO want
to help.  They are hesitant and unsure in handling her.  I end up handling
Tiny One bare-handed.... must remember to take off everything when I get
home, touch no one, put clothes directly in downstairs washer, jump directly
into the shower.  Even leave my shoes on the back porch.... Questions in the
waiting room..  'but they're wild animals, aren't they?' The standard, now
almost memorized replies... Plastic comes out and we buy a tick-picking,
trimmed toenails, cleaned ears, a distemper innoculation... The $$s don't
matter... Baby is safe, and everyone remarks 'how Very Cute she is... Yes,
'wicked cute' '...
 
Worst part of the story: while I was there completing the rescue (giving out
more leaflets, fielding questions), trying to extricate myself as quickly
and politely as possible so Tiny can get to a vet ... the animal control
officer shows me one other dear little baby.  Dead.  In the back of his
pickup.  Found that morning.  Word of yet another ferret sighting in the
area, too.  Sounds like a 'dump-and-abandon'.... I look at the gone baby.
Pause to say a
'Kind-Earth-please-accept-this-tiny-one-back-to-your-heart'... and then it's
back to the living one...
 
Ironic / lucky part: the client who's proofs I should've seen to keep on
deadline were work for my veterinarian of nine years.  I hope he'll
understand, but if no one else would, at least HE might...
 
An hour and a quarter later, leaving my tiny charge at the shelter with
'dibs' to adopt, I drive home in pouring rain and matching tears.
 
(Moral of the story: if you've left your name at vet's or pet stores: carry
gloves, consider getting a havaheart or similar and carry it in your car
with an old towel and some food dishes at all times... You may not realize
it, but * Y O U * are 'on call'.)
[Posted in FML issue 1603]