Dear Ferret Folks-
 
Yesterday I had to take Puma in to her excellent vet for some scheduled
weasel manintenence.  (No problems, she is thriving.) I carefully took
her out of the ferret room, and strapped her into her blue H-harness.
Then I slipped her into the small plastic cat carrier, and latched the
door shut.  I accomplished all of this quietly, without upsetting her.
She was puzzled, but unafraid.  She had never been in the cat carrier
before.
 
Well, apparently her domestic partner, Ping is He, remembered the cat
carrier all too well.  I'm not sure if he associated it with the trips
that Hurricane Lily made to the vet when she was ill with lymphoma.
Maybe he remembered the time she came home in that same carrier, tired
and still, and wrapped in a soft cloth, and not fighting the lymphoma
anymore.  We unwrapped her gently, and let him smell her and see her,
so that he could understand that she was gone.
 
Clearly he remembered something about that cat carrier, because when he
saw me put Puma inside of it, and latch the little barred door shut, he
lost his mind.
 
Ping could see all of this happening through the clear plastic door
barrier to the ferret room.  Once Puma was actually inside of the
carrier, he threw himself against the barrier, again and again.  This
was *not* his normal "Hey, let me out, don't you see me jumping, Dude?"
behavior.  This was scrambling, clawing, leaping,...I could see his
fangs.  His eyes were huge.  His ears were hitched back in a panicky
way.  His fur wasn't lying right across his back.
 
He jumped.  And he jumped.  And he fell back, and he jumped again.
 
I took Puma, and I left quickly.
 
We were gone for about two hours.  And when we got home, I took Puma out
of the carrier, and took off her blue H-harness.  I carried her over to
the plastic door barrier, and Ping is He was waiting for her.  He stood
up against the barrier on his back feet, straining to smell her.  I put
her on the floor gently beside him and they touched noses for a long
time.
 
Some signal that I couldn't see passed between them, and they trotted
together to the soft rose-colored hammock made for Ping by the excellent
Diddy, and sent home with him from the MAFF shelter when I adopted him.
The scrambled up into it, and made a pile.
 
I turned off the lights in the kitchen, and left them alone.
 
Alexandra in MA
[Posted in FML issue 5025]