One of my strangest "what is that thing" encounters happened around the
corner from my house, with Amelia.  A man on the streetcorner asked what she
was, and I stopped to explain.  I find that most francophones, as was this
guy, have a pretty positive image of ferrets, because of the children's song
(look for it on Ferret Central), so I didn't get any of the "does it bite?"
garbage.  However, he asked me if I was going to breed her.  I replied no,
she's fixed, and explained why that's necessary with ferrets.  To which this
man responded that fixing animals kills their spirit, changes their
personality, and I shouldn't have fixed her, in spite of everything I'd just
told him.  We had a short discussion about this, about the fact that this
would either result in tons of baby ferrets or her death, but there was no
shifting him.  I suppose in a way he had a point, but it was a pretty
radically different vision of responsible pet ownership than the one I have!
I guess this explains the tremendous stray cat population in Montreal, too.
 
I've also had the is-that-a stoat-weasel-badger-chinchilla-rat-squirrel
questions, as well as "what kind of dog is that?" That last question,
though, even the woman's friends laughed at her :)
 
Regina and the animal impersonators
[Posted in FML issue 1882]