Dear Ferret Folks- Poor Hebert. He is sooo....stupid. He really is. I call him "Hebert" or a Frenchified "Ayber"(a la Renee Downs), but my husband calls him "Moron." And I can't really argue the point. At least the husband calls him "Moron" with affection, not ridicule. There is something about our albino friend that makes you feel protective of him, because he is just so in over his ears, every day in every way. I believe I have mentioned that we have a tube system that connects to our ferret cage. Four inch wide black ridged landscaping tubing from Home Depot. It rises from the side of the cage, punches through the ferret room wall at ceiling height, then continues along the ceiling in the living room for a good twenty feet, maybe twenty five. It has little plastic grates, or viewing ports that ferrets like to look out of when they are up there. It is always interesting to have non-ferret-people visitors come to my house and see the tubing in my living room. Even more interesting when a ferret takes that moment to rush through it at full blast, making a noise like a small subway train. Cheap entertainment! We installed the tubing system when we moved here a few years ago. Ping and Puma used it many times every day. And when they passed (I miss you guys, even Puma!) Todd made extensive use of it. It is long enough that a ferret can run at top speed, and I think that this is marvelous exercise for them. Plus, it means that they have a really large cage habitat. They are not just stuck in a box. You can't really run in a cage, feel the press of the wind against your whiskers! They do get lots of out time evey day, but I feel better knowing that they can run in their plastic burrow, if I am not at home. Everything changed when Hebert came to live with us. He could understand UP...climbing UP that tube, veeery slowly, and into the living room. He wanted to do that, to explore. But for the life of him, he couldn't figure out how to get down. I would find him up by one of the viewing ports, hot, sweaty, and miserable. Once he wet himself up there. I would have to remove the plastic grate to rescue him. I kept thinking "Surely he will figure it out, he is a *ferret*, for heavan's sake!" but he never did. Reluctantly, we disengaged the tube from the side of the cage. It was a Hebert trap, and that was cruel. And I was sorry for Todd's sake. Well, time passed and something interesting happened. One day we got a package of Totally Ferret for Kits in the mail, a gift from my Anonymous Benefactor, (whoever you are!) These come in the mail every few weeks. And tucked into one of the boxes was a foil package of chicken treats in stick form. I don't remember the manufacturer. I think the package was pink. I am not a great feeder of treats, but just for fun I opened the package and offered the boys a chicken stick each. The boys were instantly in love with those things! Each would take the little beige stick in their mouth and run away, to munch in the darkness beneath the furniture. Their primary concern seemed to be a fear that the other would take it away, so the sticks were consumed at opposite ends of the house. Then they would run back to me, hoping for another handout. No luck, there. I am stingy with treats. But I did get an idea... The old piece of tubing that ran from the cage up to ceiling level was about seven feet long. It was just lying around on the floor of the ferret room, underfoot. Todd liked to play in it, so I wasn't in a hurry to find it a permanent home. Hebert never touched it. Well, I touched it. I held one end up a few feet off of the floor, and stuffed a wildly resisting Hebert nose first down it. Once he got a foot along into the tube, he found....a chicken stick. I let him enjoy it, then I shook him out of the tube. This was a lengthy process! He fought like heck. He was so aftraid of being in the tube because he didn't understand that he could leave it under his own power. He only knew a tube as a trap. The next day I again stuffed him in nose first, and TWO feet into the tube, he found...you guessed it. A delicious chicken stick. The next day, three feet, and he didn't fight nearly as hard. He munched his stick, walked out under his own power. He looked absolutely astonished to come out the other end without any struggle! By the time I ran out of chicken sticks, Hebert was running back and forth through the tube freely, playing chase with Todd. I sweet-talked my husband into re-installing the tube onto the side of the cage. He had grave misgivings. He was afraid that Hebert would just climb up again and get stuck. Nope. Hebert climbed up the tube veeeeery slowly, ran around up there, and climbed down nose first at about a two feet a minute. By comparison, Todd runs down it at hyper-relativistic speeds! But the boys have tube, now, and I feel so much better knowing this. I have no idea why "down" is so hard for Hebert. He has trouble climbing down things like chairs and other furniture. He always goes nose first, very slowly. Todd, by comparison simply hurls himself with an athletic leap, and hits the ground running. I had an albino once many years ago, Maya the Moose, Mighty Digger of Dirt. She had no trouble with down that I recall, although we did not yet have a tube system. A vision problem related to albinism? I had a blind ferret who didn't miss a beat, Sabrina the Bat Biter, who lost her vision with age. I just don't know what Hebert's problem is. But now, thanks to the delicious chicken sticks, he has *tube*, and tube is good! Alexandra in MA [Posted in FML 6251]