I have wonderful valentine news for you all about my autistic son Sean. As
I wrote before, Sean, my 8 year old has only grown more bonded to our two
deaf ferrets Ping and Pong. He has been so responsible, and loving. His
socialness with the fuzzies has been spontanious and natural which is such
a step with his autism. We promised him something spectacular after the
Christmas episode with Sean having that fever, and the ferrets helping him.
We promised him that if he continued on such a great path that we would get
him his own ferret.
So for the past 6 weeks or so, we have watched our son grow even more
responsible and blossom. We right away had begun looking and planning on
how or where we would get our next baby. We had planned all along to get a
very well bred ferret with some foreign lines in it. I have had a variety
of ferrets over my life time and I wanted a well bred one for a change, and
I wanted one that would be big and last a long time. Something very
unexpected happened.
Before ordering a kit, I checked into shelters. I have never been to one
before. Although I had made the conscious decision to go to shelters from
here on in... I was set on a well bred kit. Because of my decision, we
decided to check shelters first. I want to tell you of my experience.
I had already decided on two well known shelters that were within a few
hours driving distance. I have to tell you when I called this one shelter
I was greeted by this sweet man. He told me all about the shelter and
mostly I told him about me and my situation. I wanted him to know I had a
lot of love to offer, experiece, and a good home. When it came down to me
asking details over specific ferrets for adoption, he laughed and said I
had to speak to "the expert". A cheery voice greeted me, and it was his
wife. I told her about us and asked many questions. I asked all about
their home, the shelter history, and just ferret talk to see if I liked how
they raise their angels. Well I was so impressed. They had 35 ferrets.
She was able to off hand pick one that fit our needs perfectly. I wanted
an adult because I didn't want to go through the kit stuff so much. Sean
wanted a baby kit. Sean wanted a boy. I always wanted a big ferret,
especially a bulldog kinda build. I wanted a hearing ferret as I miss
ferret dooking and all. Sean wanted a cuddley ferret. If he had a color
to choose from, he liked choclate ones. Ok... so here is what she came
up with. A 3 month old boy, that was huge, fat, almost bulldog build,
sable..but choclatey hue, hearing/exemely vocal (goody), gets along with
other ferrets, and is a lap ferret already. We had no money. No good car,
but this just felt too right.
We had friends help, and they actually lent us a new bonneville to drive
there, and got us some money for the trip and all. These sweet people at
the shelter had plans, but they curtailed them just for us. It was a
really happy ride. Even if we did not end up adopting I was very excited
to see lots of ferrets. I expected to see lots of sad cases as they told
me on the phone all about the abuse stories, and the special needs, and
adrenal cases, etc.. But that is not what I found.
We pulled up to a nice little home and on the bottom of the door was a
sign to watch out for ferrets. As we walked in we were greeted by a very
excited, bald adrenal girl. My oldest son picked her up right away and sat
with her and loved. In these peoples living room were huge ferret homes
filled up with hammys, toys, food, and ....ferrets. Oh we were intoduced
to almost everyone. And the man kept putting these big sweet ole boys in
my arms.
I saw ferrets of every color, and pattern there is almost. They were of
all sizes, ages, temperments, etc.. I couldn't choose! It's a good thing
the shelter people matched us.. to give us a start. We stayed all
afternoon and talked ferrets, and I got to play with the ferrets all I
wanted. Their ferrets had the softest fur I ever felt. And many of the
ferrets licked my face all over.
These lovely people I noticed are running this shelter on faith pretty
much. Neighbors contribute newpapers, etc.. The cages were gorgious, the
food the best you could get. They had all the love and toys in the world,
but they need more hammys as they wear. I noticed its impossible to keep
up with that many ferret poopies. If I lived there and had no asthma I
think what I would really like to do is contribute man power and help with
the chores, ferret care, etc..
I didn't want to leave and wished I could take home more babies. I will be
referring people and hopefully going back to at least visit. This was one
of the neatest experiences I ever had.
wolfy
please check out "http://www.geocities.com/Petsburgh/2396/sean.html"
KITY= .. =KAT's Fur Faces, A Cristmas Miracle ...for Sean
[Posted in FML issue 2960]
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