HEllo, hello -- sorry it's been so long since I wrote -- it's been another busy (though not unhappy) time, and this email has been interrupted many times. I think I began it at least a month ago! It's now too long for most of you to want to read the whole thing in one sitting, so I'm going to break it up. Thanks for your great replies! DOES ANYONE WANT TO GET OFF THIS LIST? WOULD ANY FMLers or members of other groups LIKE TO GET INDIVIDUAL COPIES? Does anyone who's getting one NOT want an individual copy? Does anyone have ANOTHER ADDRESS they'd rather that I use? Does anyone want copies of "BACK ISSUES"? - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Well, well, WELL! After a couple of months of dealing w paperwork, we now have a vet-services license, which makes it legal to start our vet diagnostic lab and clinic. We also got an agric license -- the idea is to have a little nursery for growing various ornamental trees, shrubs, vines, plants, and maybe some fruit and/or other specialty crops to sell to the top hotels here. I think I already told you that the government will GIVE me/us land because we are investors -- I have to draw up a tentative plan for its use, but before that I have to identify a suitable area for what we want to grow. And before that I have to find out what plants are allowed into the country, since I want to bring in things I haven't seen here but which should grow well. Our ferrets, Rico and Jonas, are in great shape -- each has glistening fur, among other signs of health. Their bodies feel sturdy, and they run around and play a lot, especially Jonas who is young and never got the horrible GI illness. Btw, we still don't have a solid diagnosis for that illness -- we just think maybe we have the cure. Pretty much a full battery for GI illnesses. Bayrtil, amoxy, sulfa, subQ dextrose, omeprozole, syringe food-and-water feeding, with all except the Baytril given for almost a month. One sad suspicion I have is that the deaths were caused by contaminated food.... A lot more rigor is now in place. On a brighter related side, we have received our PINGFORD'S PORRIDGE. They like it -- in fact Jonas broke into a package before we had a chance to make it up. Dr Dawit is still working on his possible visit to Israel. The first connections aren't directly working out, but that vet, Dr Ady Y. Gancz, is helping to locate other options. Dr Gancz has moved his practice -- or I should say has started a practice of his own there, and feels that he doesn't have enough ferret clients to make it worth Dr D's time. I myself have had to put off my visit to the US. First of all, a mild case of typhus (now cured -- just a couple of weeks of tetracycline, yuck), and second we are Still Waiting For the Customs Clearance of the sewing machines, fert Rxs, and lots of other biz, animal, and personal things..... {well, since I wrote that, we got the first shipment cleared. A long story there, for another post. But we now have some bags of Evo ferret food plus Diamond cat and dog food. We got delivery Friday afternoon, and we've started to unpack all of the boxes, and today we found the sewing machines. Lots of sewing books too and Sisay, Saba, and I are getting new info and new ideas already.} It's toward the end of winter here now -- the rainy season. Addis weather is very similar to that of the SF Bay Area (but w the seasons reversed in time), so it's not all that cold. The freshness of the rain and the green are wonderful. I thought I'd dislike this season, but it is great. We have a monster volunteer squash vine in the front yard. It completely covers an area of almost 50 square feet and spreads out to about double that size in all. It got into the ferrets' outdoor pen, through the double-entrance area, and is climbing up the walls on two sides. On one side it is about to go out the top. Since there is no frost here, I suppose it will grow till its life cycle is over. Maybe it is immortal! The ferrets look like something in a fairytale when they are under the leaves that cluster and run along the ground. I've got some pix for the FML's 2009 ferret calendar. We thought the plant was a zuchini or something like one. Till the rains it made lots of flowers bt no fruit. Now it's producing many, and the one big one looks like a watermelon. Stay posted, you gardeners and vegetable lovers! We're already growing tomatoes, hot peppers (caria) and potatoes. I think we'll have a good and active time with our agricultural projects. Everyone here except for Saba and I comes from farming stock. Fine-Ferret Jonas spent several hours in my room w me this AM when I was taking a nap. After upsetting the wastebasket, getting in the clothes hamper slot, etc etc {Hey, how about EIGHT-INCH FERRET DESTROYS BEDROOM?}, he got under the covers and took a snooze himself. Have any of you EVER HARMED A FERRET IN BED by rolling over on the small creature or otherwise inflicting an injury? Abt six weeks ago we rescued a little old (8-9 yrs) FEMALE dog off the street who had a bad case of mange (sarcophogic I assume). We named her Mulu. She looks like a corgi/golden/pomeranian mix, and I think she is or was descended from a forenji (foreigner) dog. She also knows about leashes and mostly walks on your left side. I would think that she wasn't on the street for very long. She is sturdy and bright. My friends point out, though, that lots of street dogs are sturdy and bright. On the other hand, people are known to ditch their dogs when they get a disease or get too old to serve as guard dogs. On another hand, Mulu is no guard dog. Not one peep -- in fact I don't think we have ever heard her bark. She is house-broken. {We now see that Mulu is missing some teeth and that others are broken.} The usual case w dogs here is that they live outside, even when owned. In fact, later I will tell you some very sad stories of some common ways they are kept. Who knows Mulu's history, but she doesn't seem to have been mistreated in those ways. She's a sweet dog. She often seems sad. Maybe it is just having a hard life, or perhaps she doesn't like being the lowest on the dog totem pole, or at least the one given the fewest privileges by the humans. Abeba and Tsige wish she weren't here and don't want her indoors. Since she is used to being a free dog to wander where she likes, we let her out to stroll the neighborhood. She is in love with Sisay, who feeds her and all the other animals. Also he was the one who took her for walks while she was isolated from the other animals to keep the mites from spreading to them. DO MANGE MITES POSE A THREAT TO FERRETS? If so, do regular Revolution doses prevent the infections? How about recurrences on Mulu? I hear that when the symptoms are all gone, recurrences often recur when the weather turns warm. Is that eggs under the surface? Will regular treatment of Frontline prevent it? Here's part 2: Mulu's sort of short-legged, Golden-R colored, some feathers on haunches and tail, tucked-in belly, big round black-rimmed brown eyes like a Pomeranian, black nose, gums, lips. She has some of the mannerisms of our Chinese Cresteds -- the way she lies down w her back legs extended out and back, and a way of standing on her hind legs and waving her front paws in the air. She's very afraid of injections (she's now had (or re-had her first-year vaccinations), and took a while to get used to being touched on her lower back and flanks, where the mange was advanced. She used to shriek, snarl, and pretend she would bite, but she just butted you with a canine. Usually she collapsed when she saw that did no good, but once I nicked her with a scissors, and at my next attempt a moment later, she hit hard and gave me a bruise. Next I got a good cut, so I gave her the Alpha-Dog Rollover with some dominant posture and shouting, and then I touched her slightly roughly on her flanks. Now she doesn't mind our touching her anywhere. The other day she got a front claw caught in my sweater and panicked briefly with a couple of shrieks, but then waited while I disentangled her. I once knew some people w a dog they loved who developed mange, and they tried treating it in horrendous ways -- one was applying something flammable (kerosene?) and setting the dog's back on fire. Dear God. The dog wasn't cured, and they put it down. The remaining and serious problem with Mulu is that she likes to chase cats and bite at them, and also she jumps up and down trying to reach the ferrets when she sees them passing overhead through their tunnels. We are training her, but if we can't get her over it, we'll have to find another home for her. It wont be easy here, since she isn't young and doesn't guard. {She's much better abt bothering the cats now, but if one runs, she runs after it and one ormore of the other dogs follow. Today I was carrying little (female) Tsahai, and when she saw Mulu she struggled free, gave me a good couple of scratches, tore my blouse in the process, and ran. Off after her went Mulu, Julie, and Dante. Mulu got her second Alpha-dog rollover w plenty of shouting and the others got shouting barrages up close. M understood the rollover, but wasn't terrified the way she was the first time. We haven't done any training about the ferrets, but have to, since if they make escapes, Mulu would be after them. If the training doesn't work, Mrs. Mulu gets a new home.} The cats have taken to crawling through the ferret-tunnel maze. They started it to get into the ferret-only room -- presumably to get to the luscious ferret food. Right now, all 5 of them and Jonas (the white ferret) are in the computer/main-sewing/cat room. The cats have come in via the tunnel that leads from the floor of their room up to the top of the window there, across the top of the outside wall, to the top of the window in this room, and then down to the floor here. I had the tunels made abt 7" square, thinking to give the ferrets more room than I had in California, and it turns out to be enough room for the cats. It's pretty funny to see them worming their way up and down, occasionally backwards. For example, sometimes they meet a ferret and they have to back up. Two of our cats had blood draws today, and the blood is being processed by a human-diagnostic lab. I think Dr D has developed a more productive relationship w someone there, but apparently it is still a matter of practically begging for access. The first cat is Hima, our Thai cat. I got him in the big Bankok market last year when I was animal-starved. I began by looking for a ferret, but the only one I saw was sick unto death... btw, the name Hima is Thai for Snow, and derives from "Himalaya." I brought Hima here to Ethiopia for a couple of months, and then to Calif for several months, and finally back here. All the animals are now world travellers, but Hima and Julie have the most on their records. Julie is a Barbet from France. My cousin Lisa (Hi Lisa!) and I spent a couple of weeks there and then brought her to Lisa's on the US E Coast. Then I took Julie home to the West Coast. From there she went to Mexico with me abt 6 weeks later, where we stayed w friends for abt another 6 weeks, and then home again to Calif. She did fine with all of those trips, but the trip fr Calif to here was had on her and Dante, our big yellow guy. Something bad seems to have happened on a runway or elsewhere. Each is more nervous than before, even now a little bit, and for a long time, Julie always barked and/or ran and hid when airplanes passed. Week before last, Hima was deadly sick. The likely cause is catching and eating a rat that had been poisoned. Luckily the poison was one that causes death by slow rather than immediate internal bleeding, and we were able to bring Hima back, using charcoal, forced feeding of condensed cream, and a day or two later starting Vitamin K-3 injections. That medication is only recently available here. Thank God it now is. The injections were terribly painful. For the first 3 of 5, Hima screamed and fell down as though he were dead, and stayed there some scary minutes. The last two he braved out with only the scream and struggles. For the first two he had no ability to struggle. Dr D gave the 1st injection, and Sisay and I gave the 2cnd. I just couldn't do the 3rd, so Dr D did it and also the 4th when he had to come to see Raoul (our dusty-orange, very American cat who had a bad cold). Sisay and I did the 5th. Yowzer, being an enforced vet tech is something else, not quite in my line, believe you me. But here I am, and there it is. Still, something that is bound to help -- this fall I am going to spend some time volunteering at ZOO'S Ferret Sanctuary. I should get to observe and learn a lot. I might be there on Sept 28. So Hima had his blood drawn today to see what if any effects the poisoning has left in his body. He gave almost no resistance to the blood draw -- usually he would have been a real handful. He is a more pliant beast now... Raoul, on the other hand was wild and had to be partly sedated. Even then, he clawed, got the needle jerked out, and sprayed blood around. btw, Another difference between here and there (the US, that is) is that Dr D comes to the house to do all of these services. As a rule, Raoul is a gentle calm creature. A few months ago he came down w a kidney infection. He is only 2 or 3 years old. It resolved nicely, but a month or so ago he began again to complain sharply abt sensitivity around where his kidneys are. Dr D found tight muscles, no other sign of trauma, and no signs of infection. It persisted, and Dr D took a blood draw that came up w no kidney problems, but some elevated components that show signif inflammation (wh I will get later; R is now on my lap). Because the latter were counted by hand, Dr D decided to give Raoul prednisolone for a week, then wait 1+ weeks, and redraw and re-count, which is what today's draw was about. We'll get the results tonight (Sat) or Mon. {OK, it's been at least three weeks since I wrote that -- Hima's blood is great, and Raoul's is much improved, but still a little worrisome. Hima is back to all of his old ways.} [Posted in FML 6081]