This is Susie Lee of The Ferret And Dove Sanctuary, Inc. We're gathered in remembrance of a little lady ferret who had touched the lives of many. Originally adopted by a professor and a teacher, she was a tiny but determined little albino lady ferret, sleek and whipcord-slim. When her first people aquired a puupy, they gave her to Heaven Scent Ferrets' Sandi Robinson who had care of her for about 6 months and was slowly getting much-needed weight on Lady Coke with regular duck-soup feedings, some five years before when Lady Coke was turned in to her at the age of nearly 5. Then dear Sandi had family members become ill and here were we, able to give around-the-clock care because we're retired, so Lady CokeLeSweet and another long-term-care were brought to be fostered by us. I have already told the longer story of how Lady Coke was a "biter", disliking being handled at all, for she always did demand to be treated like a Lady with a capital "L". So I had begun the same treatment which I later gentled a similarly "fierce" Cleopatra Pearl Ferret. Holding the Lady along my left arm facing my palm, I would put small amounts of already-warmed home-made "duck soup"in my palm for the Lady to lap up. Each successive feeding she became more eager for her meals and less suspicious of human hands and handling. From the moment she was left with us, she was Never scruffed again. After about six months, she forgot all about biting. After two years, she forgot why she ever considered biting, and though she had lost her former ferret-companion to cancer, she had gained two others, the most recently mentioned having been Saint Simone So-Lovely Spirit, who took gentle care of her more elderly companion. You know what? It was after the Lady's forgetting about biting that the product of Vanilla Coke came out! Makes one wonder what real influence ferrets may have on the Universal consciousness, doesn't it! So at just over 9 hearty years of age, in the most comfort we could possibly contrive, and in deep contentment and peace, Lady Coke LeSweet has passed through the Veil in a quiet little nap between one feeding and the next, having affected the lives of many and brought learning and enlightenment to each of us. http://www.angelfire.com/theforce/ferret_rescuer/index.html [Posted in FML issue 4586]