On eating crow and ferret angels.... This last Saturday Ginger died. She had stopped eating, and I thought that the Totally Ferret food that she refused to eat was the cause of her starvation. Well, she may have stopped eating a little earlier because of the off flavor, but the TF was NOT the cause of her death. She was being starved from within by a massive tumor. I was feeding her duck soup, and she rallied for about seven days, but this last Friday I realized that she was eating less and less, even when I went back to syringe feeding. Also, the fluid in her belly was getting worse, not better. Friday night she was having trouble breathing. On Saturday, we took her to the vet, and she did what I had been afraid to do--she palpitated Ginger's abdomen, and told me she felt a massive two lobed tumor inside her. The tumor was inoperable, because of its location, and because she was too weak. We helped her over the bridge. She was so far gone at that point that she died from the shot of anesthesia that was given to her so she wouldn't feel the euthanasia shot. She breathed three times after falling asleep and then breathed no more. She had stopped eating because she didn't feel well, and in fact, was already dying. I should know better--I've been taught that correlation DOES NOT always equal causation. It was just a coincidence that the bad TF came out when she was failing, and I apologize for my presumption that I truly knew what was going on. The only thing that makes me feel a little better is that I don't have to bear the guilt anymore of not noticing her not eating bad food and letting her starve. This has been a crappy week. As well as diarrhea of the mouth, and jumping to conclusions that I shouldn't have, I've lost two ferrets. Frisky died on Thursday, July 27, and Ginger on Saturday July 29. The elven eleven has now become the nifty nine. Ginger came to us in November of 1999. She had been kept in a cage on top of the fridge and fed Friskie's cat food. She had lost most of the hair on her body, and had a fluid filled belly from malnutrition. After feeding her by hand with kibble, water, cream, ferretvite and ferritone for several months, she realized that what she liked in her soup was what what in the food dish. Over the next few months, she gained stamina from playing with our other ferrets, and even grew hair. I like to think that she had 8 months of living how a ferret deserves to live, with love, fun, and good food. She will be missed. Frisky was diagnosed with cancer in March. We decided to help him with supportive feedings of duck soup because it gave him the energy to still play and get around and enjoy what life he had left. I said that the time he turned his head away from the duck soup would be the time he was telling us it was time for him to go. On Wednesday night, he turned away. He spent most of the night in a coma, not really responding to us, although at 5:00 AM he took a little water. I stayed up with him in case he went into a seizure from low blood sugar--in that case I would have rushed him to the emergency vet. We took him into the vets on Thursday morning, and she was amazed at the size of the tumor--that he had survived this long. She administered gas, and he went to sleep while I was holding him, and then after he was out, she administered the shot. He will be cremated with his feather boa that he loved to roll up and take a nap in. He was 1st place in a best dressed contest where he wore a father and son getup like his father (matching life vests and hats like Mike wears in the Coast Guard Auxiliary). Melodyt and the nifty nine Missing Ginger and Frisky [Posted in FML issue 3130]