It is with a very, VERY heavy heart aht I am now among the many who must
write to all of you about my ferrets balding tail.  She's 4 and a half, so
I figured interesting things would begin soon.
 
I sat my husband down in the ferret room (they have their own room in our
new house) to tell him what I suspected.  We cried, and cried.  My husband,
who "doesn't like the ferrets", cried.  As we sat sniffling, the song that
ALWAYS reminds us of Claudia came on (On My Way by Rusted Root if you
haven't heard it, it just sounds like one big Weasel War dance :) :) ).
We began talking of what we would do when the day came that the song would
come on the radio when Claudia was no longer with us.  We cried again...
Just then, Shnoog, the wonder idiot, came FLYING out from under the bed,
grabbed the plastic dryer hose (that I just gave to them 3 days ago), and
proceeded to try with all his might to drag it under the bed.  Our tears
turned to laughter; We assumed that it was his way of saying that he would
be here to make us laugh and help us get through this :)
 
Now, my question.  We had to pick the time when our ferrets would be in
their golden years to decide to go low for a while and put my husband
through college.  We do not have the inevitable thousand dollars that the
testing and surgeries for adrenal things could amount to.  However, I am a
vet tech, and there are many vet clinics around this new place that we've
moved to.  Have any of you written to a vet requesting srvices in exchange
for volunteer work at the vet clinic?  This is our first idea of how to
help her, second being hit on the relative we think fell hardest for
Claudia's adorable little personality (to pay back after Dan goes back into
the Navy in 4 years, of course).  Third being, regrettably, give her
everything she could possibly desire up until her day comes to cross over
(Yes, yes, flame on if you chose to, but I've worked in vets and kennels
for years, and I know what I would think of me, but for us this is our
decision, though I may shun a person that I would see thinking like this in
any of the kennels or vets I've been at in the past).
 
To all of you who have lost your little bundles of love recently-- I feel
HORRIBLY for you... The meer THOUGHT of loosing Claudia is enough to send
me to the kleenex box.  I really don't know how I will ever survive it when
the day comes that it actually happens.  But I have all of the stories of
all of you who have suffered losses and got through it in my heart and in
my mind to think back on, and say, if they can do it, I can too (I hope
:-P).
 
Thank you for reading, and I would appreciate hearing from anyone who has
ever approached a vet in this manner.
 
Hollie, Shnoog, and the half rat-tail Claudia
[Posted in FML issue 2784]