The discussion on descenting has brought to mind when my Miesa was young. She is the only ferret I've had that came from a breeder. When she reached the appropriate age I had her fixed. On the vet's advice, I didn't have her descented. As she got older, she would poof when she scared herself. The smell was terrible, but as pointed out, it dissipated quickly. For some reason though, the smell kept getting worse and worse. I finally took her back to the vet and explained that I thought something might be wrong. The vet foolishly expressed her anal gland area and held it up to his nose. Really, really bad idea. I thought he was going to pass out! Tears, coughing, gagging- the works! Tee hee. It was all I could do to not say "I told you so". The short version of the story is that we had to go through another surgery to have her descented to get rid of the growing infection. In hindsite, I wish we had just gone ahead and done it the first time. It was terrible making her go through surgery twice. I realize that common wisom now says that it is mutilation to have them decented, but I must say that I would have to think really hard if I were in that position again. It would have been a no brainer part of the spaying surgery, but became a huge risk to do it later. Plus I'm a nutcase anytime one of them has surgery. It just breaks my heart to see them hurting. If I could avoid even the potential of that, I would certainly try to do so. Dunno. The vet and I would have many long conversations. I have a new puppy myself (well... she's about 6 months old now and I've had her since she was six weeks old). She LOVES weasel litterbox crunchies. It is completely disgusting. That is one of our ongoing battles. She's gotten really sneaky about pilfering them. On the plus side, she's a great little organic vacuum to clean up corner accidents! Blech!!!!! There is apparently no cure for this disturbing little bit of dogdom. The vet just laughs and says they won't hurt her. The best I've come up with is to ban her from the weasel room (which she is for many, many reasons) and try to stay really vigilant about checking corners. But, she still manages to crunch the random poopie. Again, BLECH!!! (Everybody has asked if the dog is easier than the weasels and I answer with a resounding NO! The puppy is a royal pain in the tookus sometimes. Of course, it has been a while since I've had a baby weasel... I do vaguly recall wanting to throttle the baby maniac Miesa... good thing they are all so darn cute!) Anne (with Miesa and the boys) [Posted in FML issue 4671]