My first hands-on ferret experience was just over two years ago. I knew what ferrets were before that, but my image of them was as working animals. I'm originally from England and I had heard of and seen them being used to chase rabbits out of their burrows. I now live in Miami, FL and due to the large feral cat problem here, I am part of a 'trap and return' neutering program. My poor Jesper had so many run-ins and abscesses with young males moving in to the area every 6-months that I knew that I had to do something! As the shelters here are overrun, animal control will not pick up feral cats. Even if they did, the county shelters are 10-day adopt or kill type places. The no-kill shelters, also overrun, especially in kitten seasons (three times a year here in the Sunshine State), will take animals if you surrender them as your own, but encourage the trap and return programs. I already had a humane trap to catch a raccoon which was coming in the cat door and trashing my kitchen and eating everything in sight (well, that is another story). So I started using that to catch the feral cats and take them to a local vet who would neuter the toms for free if you belonged to the CATS program (Care About The Strays). I put out the trap on night in a different location trying to trap a particularly smelly tom cat - he also got into the habit of pooping on my patio furniture.... yuck! To cut this rambling story short, the following morning I looked into the sprung trap hoping to see a black whiskery face, when I saw a teeny-weeny little silver fuzzball... I had no idea what to do with her, and as it was Sunday morning, I decided to keep her overnight until I could get hold of some of my shelter contacts. Of course by Monday I had the worst case of FMV. She had wheedled her way into my heart and household. I quickly read all I could and learnt how to take care of her. I could tell she was a baby, my guess being about 12 weeks, and no doubt ran away from a local home - but no one I asked in my neighborhood was looking for her. It took her about 6 weeks to settle in and perform her first dook-dook dance of Joy! What a wonderful sight! Carl joined us form a shelter 6 months later and the double-trouble is a pleasure to watch... Alison [Posted in FML issue 5057]