I greatly enjoyed some of the responses. The reason the loss and illnesses of ferrets can hurt us so much is because they are worth it. With all the pleasure they have given they have earned both our love and our pain for them. It all balances and is worth it. The best things in life (love of any kind, freedom, respect, security, adventure, learning...) all have their costs, but the greatest cost would be missing those treasures by never knowing any. >Twice now recently I've seen posts from Lisa asking about the possibility >of disengaging from ferret ownership forever. I don't think it is at all >unreasonable to make that decision, if the circumstances of your life >demand it. Yes. When I was putting myself through college I simply couldn't even feed an animal -- could barely feed myself more than once then. You went without critters for a while due to health, I did because I could not have been a responsible enough animal person for a few years. It happens. Sometimes it is most responsible to not have critters while knowing that they will again be in a person's future as circumstances allow. (Given we've had these critters for 20 years I think it's obvious that we've dealt with a lot of illness.) [Posted in FML issue 3774]