Dear Ferret Folk, To my sadness I missed the Symposium in person this year. I did however get to submit a video for 'Funniest Ferret'. Now that some of you have gotten to see Navar, I would like to share his story. Navar was a Rescue/surrender. A person I work with heard I had ferrets and asked me if I wanted this boy. She told me the ferret was mean and stunk really bad. Knowing what the ferret would face without someone that understands them, I drove to her house after work. When we arrived, she told us he had bitten her husband ( drew blood ) and they were all really scared of him since. He was housed outside. Keep in mind it was all ready well into the 90's in the day here at this time. She said they were feeding him wet cat food once a day, he wasn't aloud out of the cage. He stunk to much. I played nice and spoke with her while my son (with our Pet Taxi) fallowed her kids out back to get him. When they came back I saw this big, yellow crazy boy tearing away at the bars. The kids couldn't believe my son just picked him up and put him in the taxi. I told them we better go as I was afraid he was going to break a tooth on the bars. They wished us well because they were sure he was going to rip us up. We got home and I placed the new boy in my sons room. I told him he was going to have this stinky little guy for a room mate. I explained to my son about protecting our ferrets from a new guy. We left him to the new room and his new food and water. Don't you know, he Guzzled the water. I let the guy get a sense for this new place. Later I shot the couple pictures and tried to put him in the new cage. Well yes, I got a good nip for reaching into the nice hide spot he had found himself. ( my fault ) Navar didn't sleep on his new hammies for a couple days. I don't think he knew how. He took to our food right away. As well as Soup! What a blessing!! So the next few days I worked on trust and good things like food, water, treats, toys. You know, I didn't receive another bite!! And yes, the boy was intact! No wonder he smelled....LOL!! I really wanted him to get a few good weeks of care under his belt before any surgery, even neutering. But as fate would have it, the new loving care Navar was receiving caused him to blow that nasty yellow coat. And when I say blow, I mean BLOW! It was over a few short days total that he just changed before our eyes. Though I gave him lax, I guess not enough. Navar got a hair ball. I hadn't had him but a couple weeks. I came home from work to find projectile vomit everywhere. We ran to the vet for a barium. And there it was. I knew even though he could have chewed anything, it was going to be hair. He went into emergency surgery that night. Thank God it was summer vacation. Since I had to work, I left Navar in the care of my Son. After all he had been there since we got him. Eric did a WONDERFUL job. Fallowed every instruction I left him with. Hand feed him soup, cleaned his cage. Just plain loved him. It was 3 days later that Navar was flipping out in the sick cage. He was really upset about being locked up. I imagine the time in the tiny 2 by 2 rabbit cage outside would do that! He was bouncing and tearing at the cage so bad I was afraid he would hurt himself. So I let him out. This is when he found my son dresser drawer. And thanks to a handy digital camera, the video came to be. Navar and Eric are still best buddies. My son's loving care left a mark on Navar's little heart, and so is true wth my son!.It can be seen in the pictures. Navar doesn't even look the same. He is a pretty solid sable now. A beautiful mask. I just consider us lucky to have been blessed with him. The best spontaneous choice I ever made. A slide show showing a time line from when we got him to now can be seen here. What a difference! <http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v198/Ladyhawk12/Navar/?action=view¤t=8276aa60.pbw&t=1226454939>> Thanks for letting us share. Hope you enjoyed him in that video as much as we have. Dooks, Kris~ AKA: Ladyhawk [Posted in FML 6152]