No, fellow FMLers, I cannot speak to ferrets. Were that I could. And that is the point. There is a barrier surrounding me that I cannot get around. I can talk to you people all day. I can discuss philosophy, and express my feelings with the best of you. We have developed a language that represents to the minutest point what we mean to get across to one another. But that is where we reach the barrier. There is a whole world of thinking, breathing life with which - try as we might - we cannot communicate. In all our brilliance, we are rendered deaf and silenced. There are those who say they can communicate with animals. I don't know. I have stared into a ferret's eyes, hoping to catch something, but either I have no talent for this or no one does. It is so frustrating to know that there are thoughts and points of view alien to our own that literally stand right next to us; right next to us, and yet they may as well be a million miles away. So I do the next best thing. Since I have the gift of speech, I talk to my ferrets. Mostly, I tend to talk to them as if they were little children. Animals are "cute" and "cute" = "child" and "child" = well, "ignorant." So we talk to our companions as if they were idiots. It may well be a good thing that they cannot understand us, or they might be offended by all the moronic talk. I wonder about it sometimes, and there's the rub. I won't ever know. I am on this side of the barrier and they are on theirs. So, because I hear no complaints, I imagine there are none and I talk to them however I want. Imagination is my only outlet... I have almost stepped on a ferret (I shall cite myself, officer). All of us who keep ferrets have done that at least once. Ferrets have never attended elementary school and learned to walk on the ride side of the hall. They walk where they please and fear nothing. But maybe I'm wrong. I *imagine* they fear nothing, but what if it is something way more complex? Raised by humans, kept by humans, ferrets have been conditioned to trust humans. Ferrets learn that humans will walk around them, and eventually they lose any thought of evading feet, simply because feet magically evade them. It's a logical conclusion. But see, that's the thing. I can "conclude" till smoke comes out of my ears, but I can't know. It is a complex problem for an animal behavioralist, but it would be a simple one if one could just talk to the party in question... "Why do you never watch for our feet?" But there is no reply. We have to give our best guess. We "believe" what we want to believe, but most beliefs are really just guesses all dressed-up. Most of us would defend our beliefs with passion, but in essence we are just hoping, no matter how strongly or weakly, that our guess is the correct one. So some people explain some ferret behavior this way, and others that way, and some appear to know more, or some have better credentials. But it changes little. They might be good guesses, and the guesses may even be right, and that's the maddening part. We observe something. It appears to be correct, and yet we can never verify anything. It's always two inches out of our grasp, no matter what we do. So, are we right? Did our brilliance stumble onto the answer? Are we ever "right?" And if we can't be "right," do we say there is no answer, even if we spend an eternity witnessing the same things over and over? Maddening... It comes down to accepting our own limitations. But I am not so quick to accept mine. Not that I can somehow learn to talk to my ferrets. No, I do not expect to do that in my lifetime. Any crackpot who predicts that humans and ferrets will be having conversations in the next 50 years would be laughed out of whatever circle they belonged. And rightly so. What I do not accept is not when it might happen, but that it is not possible at all. I can speak. I can hear. "And if I can, then the Boss in all his glory must certainly have given this gift to my closest companions." But I stop myself there. I have left cold hard facts to my own imagination. I have no proof to back up anything I have come up with. I'm back at square one... So I ignore all the mental table tennis. Each rationale, each thought is an annoying ping in my ear. I have better things to do. So I talk to Jackson. Or I imagine I do... There is not one of us who have seen one of our companions in pain and not wished that they could tell us what was wrong. Where does it hurt? What can I do? My wife and I witnessed an older ferret yelp in pain until it died. He was an older guy who belonged to someone else, and we were watching him. We knew he was sick and had various medical conditions, but nothing readied us for what was to happen. I held him and tried to comfort him with tears in my eyes, but it was as if I wasn't even there. He shrieked and stared forward at nothing, until his shrieking eventually faded into silence. That blank stare has haunted me. I am not sure if he could have told me where it was hurting that I could have helped him, or at the very least, comforted him. If I knew anything, I could have tried. How can I try anything if I don't even know where to start? If I was dying, and had any luck at all, I could tell my wife moments before my death that I loved her and she would hear me and remember those words. And it would mean something to her. In this same way, I wanted to tell this shrieking old man that it was going to be alright, that his pain would end, and that he would be free (even though I'm not so sure of those things myself), and he would look at me and I would know that my words gave him some form of comfort - but I could do nothing. I could communicate nothing. Sometimes comfort is a lie, but in my inability to communicate, I could tell no lies. I could tell no truth. I might has well have been deafened and silenced. But back to Jackson. I have told you guys that Jackson has adrenal disease, and that we opted out of surgery, going with Lupron injections to lessen the symptoms. Many ferret owners do this. Adrenal disease is so rampant (Bob C. is absolutely right that husbandry is the problem) that almost all ferret owners have to deal with it at one point or another. But again, which treatment do you choose? Some choose using the logic of history. I have had two ferrets die during surgery, and I am reluctant to lose a third. But there is no true logic in history. "You roll your dice and you take your chances." Only that's where my problem starts. In all reality, those are not my dice to roll. Oh, I am stuck with the job of being "all powerful" and take responsibility like a good human being, but it is truly not my decision. I consider what I would want if the same thing were to happen to me. I would want a choice. I would want to know the facts, and if dice were to be rolled, I would want to be the one to roll them. To have any less power than that is a horrifying thought to consider -- but Jackson has none of this power. I can put him in a carrier, take him to the vet's, and the vet can give him gases and chemicals, and surgery will be done. Whatever will happen will happen. But it will be my will, not Jackson's. Jackson innocently knows nothing of all the choices and possibilities for his life, and maybe that's a good thing. Maybe it's not. I'm not so sure "knowing things" has always helped me, let alone made me happy. But I want it to be fair. Buddhists believe that all life is worth the same (from a bug up/down to the Dalai Lama), but no matter how noble that idea is, it cannot mean that all life is the *same*. Me and Jackson, we are not the same. Aye, that we were, just for a few hours. So many things I want to tell him... Roary 35.246302 ~ -106.717857 [Posted in FML 6104]