Bob wrote: >Oh, and I also want to spread anarchy What? You'll be handing out ferrets? ;-) (Joke, folks...) Glueball loves to batter the Weezlwatchers and she's gotten to the point where she lie down and on the bottom of the gate can do 4 beats to the measure with one hand and three with the other, then four and four, then three and four, then... >What IS that panting thing?? The panting "Heh-heh-heh" done during play? Appears to be laughter from context and sound. Wouldn't be a surprise if it is, some sounds are very, very old and more widely spread than that, also, ferrets do learn from us so if it's a primate thing it still could be picked up that way. There are some interesting studies on sound patterns and seeing how widely they are used for similar situations; some sound patterns are found in similar situation in reptiles and birds as well as in humans from something I read a good while ago (maybe a decade? and have largely forgotten. This won't be a surprise if you think of crying or whimpering noises, hisses, growling sounds, comfy purry sounds like a parent crooning to a baby... >Aren't we all here for the greater good of the ferrets?? Stop being such >big babies & arguing all the time. You can deal with it. The fuzzies >can not! If someone's feelings get hurt, tough!! I have to partly disagree. Some (actually a good number) of the people here who have recently disagreed with some individuals, BTW, are ones who donate huge amounts of time and money to helping improve situations for ferrets. There IS room for such polite disagreement, but there is NOT room for being nasty or picking fights. Problems arise sometimes with individuals who straddle the line between the two, but we're only human here, and there's nothing wrong with folks then writing that they disagree. Heck, when those people are ones who donate so much to help ferrets there's nothing lost to their actions, either; they are merely speaking their pieces about something which hits home. I think the mutual support which is given by so many productive ferret-helping souls toward protecting the feelings of others who also help ferrets so very much is a strength and does help the greater good of ferrets because it brings the community closer. Have to admit, though, that I'd like to see a greater number of posts from people who are discovering useful things to help others, but post types seem to often go in cycles and there will be more of those again, too, soon enough. [Posted in FML issue 3157]