Dear Sharon Burbine,
 
Pleased to read of the rescue of 2 ferrets.  Would like to know precisely
how these two lost ones were seized, presumably in darkness?  Were the
searchers using flashlights and looking for green-eye reflections?  Did the
ferret (s) come right up to the searcher, or was the ferret literally run
down and snatched?
 
Ferrets NorthWest FNW uses a method that works very well in recovering
wandering ferrets, providing they have been in our shelter for several
months, and the adopter keeps up the conditioning by use of the goose horn.
 
Every day at LUMPS time, just as the tongue starts lapping up the soup and
the little eyes squint (cute little tear forms in the apex) a goose horn is
blown adjacent to the gulping ferret.  The goose horn is actually a
squeeze-bulb horn that you see on the handlebars of a kid's tricycle, 'cept
the rubber bulb is long since gone, so the horn is blown by mouth.  A finger
in the bell of the horn can modulate the squawk so it sounds just like a
double note gander.
 
After a while, 2 to 3 months, the ferrets have associated the goose horn
with their warm LUMPS, and like Pavlov's dog, they are conditioned - read
alerted by - the squawk of the goose horn.  We strongly encourage our
adopters to continue this practice when they depart FNW with their
Frettchen.
 
After the ferret has wandered away by some misfortune or other human defect,
and they are out and about for 6 to 10 hours and their bellies are empty,
they respond positively to the sound of the goose horn.  It is a very loud
squawk and carries well.  It is unusual in the normal environment compared
to other sounds, and is a great tool for interesting the neighbors in just
what the h..l your'e doing walking thru their shrubbery at night with your
5-cell 'coon flashlight playing you 2-tone miniature trumpet.
 
The thought just came .  .  .  Hey!  Maybe we could add a ferret calling
contest to our Ferret Frolics/Ferret Olympics we have out here on the Left
coast twice yearly !  !
 
Oh, yeah, go ahead and ask me how we recovered a little Japanese ferret lost
in the rugged Cascade mountains for an entire week.  Boy, am I proud of
that.
 
Anybody else out there had any experiences in recovering a lost ferret?
Please, sure like to hear from you.
 
Edward Frettchenvergnuegen Lipinski,
[Posted in FML issue 1818]