Ferret dolls, babies, jinglies, squeakies, you name it, my kids have it
all.  Some play with them, some attack when one is squeaked but only one
hordes them and treats them as babies.  Ruby.  Ruby is 1.5 years old,
deaf and small, but she can carry a large stuffed teddy better than a
five year old hoomin child.
 
Every year Petco and PetSmart mark down their Christmas toys to 25% or
less of the original cost.  That's when I hit the store.  I'll walk out
having spent $20.00 and gotten 30+ of these little toys for the kids.  I
bring them home, go to the ferret room, sit on the floor as Ruby stands
there quivering with excitement.  Each one is checked out for anything
dangerous, then the plastic tag clipped off and it's handed to Ruby, who
promptly snatches it and runs off to some hideyhole for later evacuation
to their new home.
 
Sometime in the middle of the night, she chooses which are her newest
favorites and they get transported to the top level of the cage that's
covered by a sheet.  But they don't stay there.
 
The next day when I lift the room barrier and let the fuzzies out to
play in my office and hallway, Ruby will run to the top of the cage,
grab a baby, run down all four levels, across her room, across the hall,
defending her baby from those lurking, waiting to pounce.  She runs
under my file cabinet to the back, crawls up the back of the drawer and
deposits her baby in the files she's shredded.  She'll repeat this until
all the babies have been brought to the filing cabinet.  The next day
she does the exact opposite, she returns them all to the top level of
the cage.
 
Leslie
[Posted in FML issue 5193]