Hey Hey Hey, Following the recent threads of accidents and the passing of Ping is He and Alexandra, I will rewrite about my accidents. I wrote when they happened and fortunately I did not get flamed because it would have devastated me if that had happened. I pray my luck holds out and I dont get flamed this time. If I do, I will just have to haul up my big girl panties and realize that mean folks suck. Let me preface this by saying long before I ever got my first ferret, I married a wonderful man, honest, dependable, loving, non abusive, working, humorous, good looking. Also long before I ever got my first ferret I rescued a beautiful wolf hybrid that was going to be euthanized because his owner did not know how to handle a dominant animal. Naki lived with us many years and his special domain, his favorite, was the back yard. He was protective of that yard. That being said and out of the way: I had ferrets for about a year or so when I rescued a beautiful black/silver/panda mitt. She was so beautiful I called her my uptown girl. Her name was Sterling. She had escaped her first home and was running free when someone picked her up and called me. She was beautiful. Maybee about 6 months old. Sparking personality and loved to steal socks. She fit right in with my crew. I had my bedroom ferret proofed and they ran in the bedroom 24/7. One day my husband needed to use a power tool outside and opened the window just a crack to run a cord thru and put a teeny tiney hole in the screen. I went into the bedroom a short while later to play with the ferrets. After being in there for a little while I noticed that I had not seen Sterling in a while and started looking for her. As it became obvious she was not in the bedroom I started freaking out. About that time I noticed the hole in the screen, behind the head board of the bed and the cord running out of the window. I asked my husband about it and told him Sterling was missing. I was outside in the front looking for her. He went into the back yard where he found her, so had Naki the wolf. I was so upset. I was hysterical. My husband never ever thought I was too paranoid or too careful about the ferrets again. Several years later I lost Noble. Noble had been with me about a year. He was a rescue. He had insulinoma, cardio, adrenal, ferret asthma..... But he was the coolest old guy. Mostly Noble slept. There were many time I thought long and hard about quality vs. quantity of life with Noble. But everytime I heated up the gravy, Noble would raise his head and sometimes with eyes still closed, his little tounge would eagerly flick out. He LOVED that gravy and as long as Noble LOVED something in this life I was gonna hang on. After a lot of research and nursing etc. I finaly got Noble to start comming around health wise. He even climbed the pine tree in the front yard. It was his favorite thing to do. Noble was also running around the house and acting like a YOUNG ferret again. My husband worked out of town during that time period and had just come home for Christmas. I went to work in the morning and my husband went Christmas shopping. My husband found a little bit too much Christmas Cheer. I came home from work and he told me all the ferrets were fine but he did not know where Noble was. I started looking immediately. I asked if he had fed Naki (the wolf) and Nasty (his wife, a chow) and he said yes. I told him to look outside for Noble. My husband said that there was no way Noble could have got out there. I made him look anyways. Noble had found the way out and over the bridge. I physicly hit my husband for the one and only time ever and then I sat on my kitchen floor and screamed and screamed and screamed. I learned the very difficult thing that Alex learned. Love makes us be bigger than we are. Sometimes it stretches us in ways we dont want to go. I could not blame Naki. He was a wolf. I could not expect him to be anything else. My husband? We are still married. He is very very careful around our critters. When he has had too much cheer he does not interact with them at all. I did not rehome all of my ferrets, I did not quit fostering or rescuing. Today, I still have 4 ferrets. All rescues. Two of them DMK's. Naki and Nasty have departed for the bridge due to age. I have two very small dogs now that are terrified of the ferrets and run when they see them comming. Both of these accidents had two common threads. Naki and my husband. They had much more in common than the two accidents that tore Alexander's heart out. I do not feel I should have quit with ferrets after I lost Sterling. I did seriously consider it when I lost Noble. I was talked out of it by a very good friend/shelter operator. I do not think I made the wrong descision. I am not a child abuser and I do not need intervention in my life. I feel I am fully accountable and do not need any outside accountablity partners. Alex, I have been where you are at. I totaly understand and I think you are great and am so glad you got Todd. God Bless You. -- Jesus knows me, this I love! Karen "When someone loves you they say your name differently. You just know that your name is safe in their mouth!" Billy age 4 [Posted in FML 6095]