Condolences to those with lost, sick, or angeled chicken chompers... (Hey! That's MY fried chicken! Come back here with that!) To those who might have misunderstood, my new Jessica is a ferret. A cute, interestingly-sable-marked, long-tailed, four-footed furflumpy. Got some e-Cards that showed that some folxes might have thought she was a human-type bouncing baby arrival. Just wanted to set the record straight! :) Anyway... Funny stories? Oh, I think I have a few... Part I: A Squeak in Passing As I mentioned, Jessica, my newest arrival, isn't quite other-ferret oriented yet. I let her run around the house at the same time as Ghost (my albino boy) gets out. I also let her out in the morning, when Taz (my other solo boy) has run of the house. This way, she gets to meet two boys, but on a one-to-one basis. Unfortunately, she isn't ready to flirt--yet. In order to keep Ghost at bay, she has learned to 'squeak' at him whenever he gets too close. The squeak kind of startles him and he stops in his tracks and looks all around, as if to figure out where that noise came from. He occasionally corners her and tries strange boy tricks like leaping on her, or shoving his snout under her belly and lifting her up the wall, or maybe shoving her around with his shoulder...all the typical things boys do to impress girls, I guess. She doesn't quite know what to make of these actions, so she wiggles and scrunches up and does other girl things in order to confuse Ghost so that she can affect an escape. It usually works, since Ghost isn't the credit card with the most available credit in the wallet. Now that she has also met Taz (he's my 'Whut's a ferret...and why are they so scary looking?' ferret), she has found out that boys will be boys. She has also learned that the 'squeak' works on him, as well! Taz will come running up to her to see what she is, and what she is doing and she'll let out a loud, high-pitched squeak better than any mouse ever thought to make. Taz will stop, stiffen up and look all over the place, trying to locate that strange noise. In the meantime, Jessica makes good her escape. So far, Taz hasn't caught on to her trick! Now, when Jessica is cruising around the house and one of the boys suddenly appears, she just points her snout at them, squeaks and continues right on with whatever she was doing, as though they were remote controlled robots! Its her answer to clicker-training a ferret! She hasn't figured out how to control the cat yet, but I'll bet she's working on it! Thanx! Several of you were quite kind in sending me some rather cute little e-Cards celebrating the arrival of Jessica into the Fuzzbutt Rodeo Clown corral! There were quite a few and it would have taken a very long time to thank all of you individually, so I'm hoping you will all be willing to accept a mass THANX! from me and the furkidlets! The cards were much appreciated...especially t he one with the fireworks that many of the kibble-crunchers thought was really cool! Todd and the (Dad, why is Jessica so special, just 'cuz she is cute and cuddly and has a nice shape and doesn't nip and has a cute little nose and some nice coloring and likes to play with the toys and...and...uh... never mind) Fuzzbutt Rodeo Clowns! Todd and the Fuzzbutt Rodeo Clowns! --- [log in to unmask] http://www.netconex.com/toddl/page2/ [Posted in FML issue 3891]