I just have a quick story, one among many, that I want to tell about
ferret emotions. My ferrets have always been in a home with cats and
dogs. They all play and get along. My ferrets raised new kittens and
new kittens loved their ferrets. The particular ferrets in this story
have all crossed the rainbow bridge but left me with many loving and
special memories. Fuzzie and Minnie were not the best of buddies - they
acknowledged each other but that was about it. It was a terrible day
for me as Minnie was not feeling to well and was staying in the upper
floor level off the cage. I had a litter of kittens at the time. They
were able to crawl through the holes in the material cage floors (yes,
I am the Karen that Elaine speaks of with the material cage floors) and
get to the top where Minnie was resting. They played around Minnie and
slept peacefully with him. It was interesting throughout the day to
watch Fuzzie enter the cage, go through all the levels just to find
Minnie and check on him. That evening I took Minnie in to see his
doctor and it turned out that Minnie did not get to come home again:-(
The following day Fuzzie looked high and low for Minnie! Fuzzie was
visibly panic stricken and it became worse with each cubby checked that
did not produce Minnie. This went on for about three days with the
fourth day being a day in which Fuzzie did nothing but lay around - no
play, no eating, no nothing. The following day Fuzzie came back to life
although it would be almost a week before he was back to his normal
behaviors. Okay, so many of you can relate to emotions such as these in
your experiences. But the real emotion and act of thinking or feeling
is what followed Fuzzie's acceptance that Minnie was gone. Up until
that time, Fuzzie had been all about his best buddies - the cats and
kittens. No more. Fuzzie became very hostile to each and every one of
the kittens and the subsequent litter of kittens. Not the momma cat
or other cats, but to the kittens only. Fuzzie remained a kitten
"dis-liker" until he crossed over the rainbow bridge 3 years later. (I
no longer raised kittens because of Fuzzie's intolerance of them). As
I see it, the last time Fuzzie saw Minnie, Minnie was in the company
of the kittens and when Fuzzie went looking for Minnie, Minnie was no
longer there but the kittens were. I believe Fuzzie blamed the kittens
because he had no way of knowing what really happened to Minnie.
Dis-liking kitties was Fuzzies way of blaming someone or something for
his loss. I have no scientific proof, just life experiences with my
family of ferrets. Fuzzie was also the one that would get up and start
the busy work of stashing little bits of food in all the secret cubbies
in unison with my putting away bags of groceries. This was a never fail
thing. Every time I came home with groceries, Fuzzie busied himself
restocking their shelves and did not stop until I left the kitchen:-)
Can't help but see their little acts of humanity when you live with
them freely.

Thanks Elaine for the good word! I am so glad your ferts enjoy their
new floors! It is always so neat to hear the entertaining stories and
visualize their antics atop their new play spaces. Thanks for pointing
out a fuzzies need fo darkness - something that slips people's minds
sometimes.

[Posted in FML 5509]