Ferret sling modifications: as you all know, Meeteetse is waiting for her wheelchair from Doggone Wheels http://www.doggon.com/questions.html (which will hopefully get here tomorrow), and we've done sling walking with her to take strain off her rear legs. Have worked up a modification we thought you'd like to know about which eases to discomfort to the human backs while helping the ferrets. Take a pair of panty hose. Lay the feet flat against each other ands sew together so that there are no bumps or ridges to form the hammock which goes under the ferret's belly. (I sewed around in a circle. Look at the top of your foot and imagine a circle drawn on top of it; that's how I did it.). Then roll the abdominal section into a tight roll with the elastic on the inside of the roll, sew that to make your handle. Now, walk your handicapped ferret by placing the hammock part under the abdomen and providing enough lift to remove strain from the rear legs. When making these if you have people of different sizes in your household you can buy multiple size of pantyhose to give more or less length to the legs, and can color code by purchasing each in a different color. That means that tall people can be careful of their backs, too. Oh, and the cheap ones seem to work better than the more expensive and more sheer ones! Yes, we have experimented. Plus, we found a new trick which improves Meeteetse's comfort very rapidly -- a variation of abdominal massage in which we do hand over hand under her belly going gently downward as she pulls forward with her front legs. It varies from the usual belly surface clockwise massage done for when a large spleen impairs intestinal pathways, or the very gentle splenic massage for large spleens that aren't coming out, yet. Must have at least a dozen different versions of massage for helping different things in conjunction with vet care, now. Do not know if this helps by making it easier for her to deal with waste, or if it gently moves her body into a position which is better for her back, or what, but it works for her. [Posted in FML issue 3198]