Hi!  I've just started to subscribe last week, after owning my kids for 3
months.  I adopted a sable male (Simon) and an albino male (Alpine).  First
I want to ask a question.  When I adopted them, the ferret humane society
(we have one here in Milwaukee) said they were "bonded" and shouldn't be
separated.  I've never heard this phrase since.  What does this mean?  I
ask because of an experience this week which shook me to the core...
 
I was trying to block a "window" between the sunroom where the kids live and
the living room and put a piece of particle board on the window ledge while
I went to get the drill.  I wasn't gone more than 30 seconds when I heard
the board fall.  There wasn't a noise, so I figured everyone was ok, but ran
to check anyway.  Simon was looking at me with the "what do you think you're
doing???" look he reserves for times I am particularly dense, while Alpine,
who had been streaking to hide under the bean bag chair, turned and
practically jumped into my arms.  It took a minute to register he was
dripping blood and his tail was almost all the way off!!!  After a quick
call to the vet, I rushed him over and he had surgery to try and reattach at
least part of it (there were two main lacerations, we guess from where the
board bounced..), we'll find out Friday if he will keep what little of his
tail he has left.  Simon howled pretty much the whole time Alpine was gone,
they've NEVER been separated since I got them!  Alpine's fine, rambunctious
as ever, though he is giving me a hard time about the antibiotics.  I think
he expressed his true feelings when I gave them to him Saturday morning
while on break from work, he climbed up on my head (I assumed he wanted to
jump to the couch, he had other plans) and threw his medicine up all over my
hair!  The thing that saved me from eternal guilt is his complete and
undying affection since the accident.  Neither of my fuzzies have ever been
particularily affectionate, probably due to abuse I know they suffered
before I adopted them.  But Alpine has assured me over and over that he
knows I was just stupid and sometimes you just have to forgive these twolegs
who don't understand ferret ways.  I've never had an animal be that
receptive to a human when it was hurting, but Allie obviously knew I would
do anything to help him...including spending every cent I had saved for new
tires on surgery for him.  Since the accident Friday, he's never more than
two feet from me, and always begging "up??"
 
I didn't know how good life could be until I had ferrets....and they didn't
know how life could be with a good human!
 
Cam, Simon and Alpine
 
PS  Thanks for all the wonderful postings here.  The kids have stopped
chewing on the computer wires now that I subscribe, its as if they know I'm
getting ferret stuff for them!!  It also is wonderful to hear the devotion I
feel towards my kids echoed in other mail.
[Posted in FML issue 1318]