Dan and I do alot of ferret awareness days at pet stores and various rescue events. I have come to truly dread the tween girl, too young for boys and to old for toys. They seem to fall in love with fuzzy animals. We see the ones who absolutely love the ferrets. I suppose it could just as easily be dogs, cats, rats or guinea pigs. Education days are hard on the ferrets. They get over excited about being there, and often try to sleep with their eyes open so they won't miss a thing. Generally we try to keep the sleepy ferrets crated and away from the play pen where the more active ferrets are. As the day wears on, all of the ferrets get sleepy. The sleepy ferrets are left in the playpen, where they can be seen. We ask they not be touched. It really takes knowing your ferrets to determine whether or not they become nippy and cranky when they become over tired. I admit I used to take ferrets who got cranky and nippy when they were tired, because I could close them up in a crate and let them sleep undisturbed. Now I can't even risk those ferrets. It leaves me with a much smaller pool of ferrets that I can take out. Back to these girls who just "love" the ferrets. They open cages and crates of sleeping ferrets and pull one out, while your attention is elsewhere. They leave and come back and leave and come back. They never seem to show up when the ferrets are awake and alert. Only when the ferrets are tired and the people doing the education day is distracted. I've done 2 ferret education days this month. I find these girls more and more distracting. Dan has commented on these girls and the problems they cause as educators to the public about ferrets. KG [Posted in FML issue 4648]