No question that ferrets have emotions... Over the past 15 years of ferret ownership I've seen an array of emotions, happiness on thru to sadness. Jade Elaine was my first ferret :) I hadn't belonged to any ferret related lists when I brought Jader home, so at first I was learning on the fly. When Diasy Mai came to live with us I immediately thought that they would become instant friends, wrong! Jader was very aggressive towards Daisy, especially when Daisy took an interest in his toys. Over time, they because the best of buddies, and shared toys. Now I was bringing toys home in pairs, never would I come home with something for one and not the other. I would set the toys down and kinda let them choose who wanted what. Jade would immediately pick the one he wanted and cart his to his goody bin, run back grab the other toy and cart it to the goody bin as well. I see that as being very greedy!! Jader would let Daisy play with the toys, but between them, there seemed to be an underlying rule that all the toys was his. When Jader crossed over Daisy was not the same, she became aloof, she still ate well and all, never fell sick, but she just wasn't the same, you could plainly see that she was obviously missing Jader. She didn't have the same interest in toys or play time. It all changed when Amber-Lynn came into the picture :) Daisy was delighted, she and Ambi became fast friends and you could plainly see Daisy came out of this 'shell'. Then when Daisy crossed over, Ambi was still relatively young, still under 2 years, she was fine, but speedbumped alot. You could definitely see that Ambi was missing Daisy. Another thing about Ambi, when she heard the car pull into the driveway, she would up and run to the kitchen door, and when you opened the door, the dance of joy began...if that's isn't expressing happiness, I'm not sure what else you could call it ;o) Then Nikki Taur came into the picture, he was 12 weeks. Ambi and Nikks hit it off immediately!! Ambi had a new buddy, there are a certain few stuffed toys, that they would take from each other, Ambi would take the pig and hide it somewhere of her choice, and Nikki would find it and put in his place of choice. That to me means that they were declaring to each other who owned what. Or perhaps it was a game... Nikki got fed up one day and chewed the eye right outta the pig, I had sewn the one eye shut with the black X. After that, Nikki coddled to that little pig, treated it with royalty, as if she was mother to it :) Why would he show aggression to the pig and then love it to death? Ambi is now aging, sleeping more, and when Ambi is ready to lay down for a nap...Nikk's right with her, and they cuddle and snooze togther. I had the vet assist Ambi in her crossing to the Bridge on December 28th. I had taken Nikki with us. They cuddled together in the carrier. Nikki and I spent a bit of time with Ambi to say our goodbyes. We waited until Ambi came back in, I thought it would be important for Nikki to see Ambi after she was euthanized, he freaked out, big time!! He couldn't get far enough away from Ambi, I'm sure this scared him, in his mind he was probably thinking what happened?? We were cuddled not 5 minutes ago. I'm down to just Nikki at home now. He had been with Ambi since he was 12 weeks old, he was 5.5 when Ambi crossed over. Absolutely, he misses her. I can feel that he does, he speedbumps, sighs.... definitely misses her. I do a lot more with Nikki now that Ambi is gone, I don't want him to ever feel like he's totally 'alone', he comes for drives with me, I take him outside more often...(can't wait for the warmer weather so we can really get some outdoor time in). I'm doing everything possible to divert his attention from sadness.. Still he goes to their favorite sleeping spots and of course he's alone, I can rub him thru the blanket and he will sigh, without a doubt he's missing Ambi :( Hmm, really... I can't understand why anyone would think that ferrets are beings sans emotion. I can attest that with the 4 fuzzies, I've had over the years, I have seen lots of different emotions, and I can 'feel/sense' the very emotion they are portraying, very plain to see, no question! (`'á.ü(`'á.üü.á'«)ü.á'«) Ç«¬`á.Jadesun.᫬`È (ü.á'«(ü.á'«`'á.ü)`'á.ü) Who is General Failure?? And why he is reading my hard disk? http://www3.nbnet.nb.ca/jadesun [Posted in FML 5509]