Some home news: Warp appears to be losing her vision; it doesn't slow her
down any, though.  Ashling seems to have managed to convince the others
that she should be alpha.  I've been giving her chores but that still
hasn't gotten her to be as mature about some things as she should; today
she knocked over a speaker, ripping out the wires.  At least it didn't
land on any of the others; that is what is important.
 
The kit with cataracts: about a dozen years ago there was a breeder in one
of the Carolinas (if I'm not going senile) whose kits did this; it was
genetic in the line.  I was told years ago by a human acquaintance who was
an albino that albino eyes are even more sensitive to UV damage than blue
eyes and that seems logical.
 
Deafness: we had a blaze with partially expressed Waardensburg who couldn't
hear high pitched sounds, but loved to put her hands on the lips of someone
speaking in a high pitched voiced or to put her facce very close and would
just STARE at the lips.  Commands, mentions of treats, etc.  had to be
given in a low voice.  The expression of this disorder is variable.
 
I was so glad to hear that Charles Rupprecht got in touch with the folks in
Calgary so rapidly.  That gent has gone out of his way to help reduce the
numbers of ferret killings.  He even went to California to speak personally
with their committee trying to sway it from politics to a choice based upon
logic and data.  Unfortunately, he wasn't completely successful, but he
sure did try.  His work saved within mere months the numbers of ferrets
needed for the virus shedding studies.
 
Oh, I had mentioned to a handful of people (Offhand, can't recall who and I
lost some stuff in a hang-up and crash recently when I was printing from a
NZ site on their own ecological impact studies that the folks there told me
about.)  that I was going to talk with Steve to see if it would be feasible
to scan the documents we have and then post them on a webpage for ferret
groups which need them so that they could just print out a duplicate of the
original, but it's not.  Despite the level of the scanner things would
muddy in translation and the amount of data would be too large.
 
IMPORTANT REQUEST: please, when you lose a ferret do NOT forget the
importance of necropsies and pathology in many cases: when there is a
mysterious cause of death (Sometimes it may be the only or best way to
protect your other ferrets or other affected ferrets.), when there needs to
be a learning experience (mysterious cause, vets with low levels of ferret
experience, techs with low levels of ferret experience -- since it's safer
than learning on a live one), when there has been consultation and the
consultants need or want to learn (especially if free help was provided
since the learning opportunity is then the reward itself).  Sometimes what
is learned from a lost ferret is the best information for saving others.
 
Sukie
 
FLO: This is Ashling, using one of Daddy's socks to send this message: in
this base (Tentative and Hopeful Name "POOF" -- People Obligated to Obey
Ferrets) we roll in stolen undergarments and pilfered gym garb to acquire
the scent of the inferior species so that when we dash away with socks to
fuel our teleporter and modem interceptor (currently in use) the humans
will sniff and think it is only the other two-leg doing so.  Please,
forgive my terse grammar; I am a silver with mitts and you know how
literary we are.  Perhaps someday a human might discover that it was a
silver ferret who wrote those Shakespearian sonnets to a dark lady?  No,
they are too dense.
[Posted in FML issue 2574]