Thanks to all who have responded, publicly and privately, to my question.
I *think* I might have an anwser, although Zens idea were new ones to me
and I am still looking into those...
 
Zen Wrote:
>Are you familiar with the Zorilla?  The Lybian striped weasel?  The white
>naped weasel?  These are African.  In Asia you have the marbled polecat.
 
Zen, I am having trouble finding info online on these.  Do you know any
sites offhand?
 
Other than that, several folks suggested the Civet, when I first went to
the Civet page, the color and markings were on the nose but the body was
wrong... more cat like than ferret like.  However, I did find a oage alllll
about Civets and learned there are 15 different subspecies of Civet, some
are very catlike in apprearance and some were described as being more
weasal like.  But I have yet to find a pic of the weasal like Civets, so
if anyone has that info, I would appreciate it.
 
To all those who suggested meercats, mongooses etc..  that is part of why I
was confused, I am familar with those critters.  The odd thing about the
critter I saw was that it had long fluffy, silky fur and it was black and
silver with both stripes and spots in a wonderful pattern.  Like I said the
Civet had the exact color and markings, so right now I am thinking it was
the weasal like Civet.  Thanks to everyone for their help.
 
I wanted to comment on the post about preparing for death.  I found that
to be very accurate and enlightning.  As a shelter operator and a small
hobby breeder, I thought I had gotten *used* to losing some.  Dealing with
rescues and newborns, losses do happen.  I had developed (I thought) a
pretty good abililty to look at life and death logically and deal with it.
In December however, when I had lost 3 of my personal, cherished babies...
I felt like I was hit by a truck, I was totally unprepared for that kind of
loss, and it took a lot to try to hold things together.  Remember I still
had several sick ones depending on me for their survival, so curling up in
a ball was not an option!  That was an axcellent, well thought out plan
that every ferret owner should have... and trust me, the parts about the
asprin and sleep aids was very correct.
 
Thanks for putting that together.
[Posted in FML issue 2939]