>From: Juliana Quadrozzi <[log in to unmask]> >Subject: Morehouse 17 Update > >...Hopefully they're all as friendly & healthy as they've assured me >they are. I think I'll ask my boss if I can take off the whole week, I >think I'm going to need it. Hi! Just wanted to mention that I adoped a couple ferrets from the Univ. of WA some years back. They had been used to train students intubation techniques. Both were neutered and in apparent good health. But my husband was worried they'd be "psychologically damaged" after living in a lab situation for a couple years (they are usually rotated out after a certain amount of time). I thought otherwise. I felt like a true adopting mom - I was!! - all the long day at work and as I approached their room in the huge Health Sciences building. There door was opened and there were two BIG fuzzies in two barren cages, one of them playing! The lab tech said, "Oh, look, they're playing! I've never seen them do that!" I said something like, "Yes, that's what ferrets do!". She said to make absolutely sure they were introduced slowly as they'd never been together. The whole way home one of them batted a ball about, making a wonderful racket :)P As soon as I got home.... well, I couldn't resist. Out they both came together and in a split second they were crow hopping and muck-mucking across the huge, wooden floor, having a ball, free as little furred birds at last!! Oh, did my heart ever swell and tears run over in that wonderful, memorable moment. How they played and played that day and long beyond.... Percy and Shcroeder didn't live ultra-long lives with us, maybe a few years. But they were happy guys. Schroeder Boat was the funniest looking guy, but what a big buggy-eyed sweetheart! He succumbed to cardiomyopathy three or so years later, the first fuzzy we ever lost of ten, and a real heartbreak. Percy was my first adrenal boy and launched the Ferret Adrenal-Insulinoma Mailing List (FAIML) that I ran for many years. He died while coming out of anesthesia following a long surgery for a urinary blockage.... a real heartbreak as I later learned things that could have saved him.... big, BIG, sigh. But what a pair of sweeties they were! And they finally got to live with a whole brood of other fuzzies, got to learn to wrestle from Tarzan (once he accepted Schroeder, which took ages - those two big alpha boys!), got lots of romps outside, joined in teasing the big, old cat Wellington, lived in our three-story wall- sized ferret condo... and generally made us such a lucky mom, pop, and siblings! Juliana, you're doing a wonderful thing! I hope the Morehouse gang all find homes where they're cherished as they should be. I'll bet my bottom dollary they'll all be the same rootin', hootin', paw-stompin' girls and guys we all know and love, once their toes touch the floors of their new, heartwarming homes. Lynn, getting to visit my nephew fuzzy Beau-Bean tonight!! [Posted in FML issue 4590]