Here is an update on Anna and her ferrets. Her grandfather had called me during the week to ask if Anna could come and visit her ferrets. As you may recall from the previous post, we are watching them for her while her mom undergoes her second round of cancer treatments. He mentioned that for her birthday that she wanted to come and visit her ferrets since she missed them. So the wheels got turning and I made a couple of calls, let's have a little party for her! Much, much appreciation goes to Eleanor Mead who not only made her special ferret figurine presents, but also delivered them to my house Friday evening. Hearing that Eleanor was local to me, Cathy Ryan arranged with Eleanor to get a special ferret gift for Anna as well. As I had thought, she wasn't able to see her Mom on her 11th birthday. Arriving a little sad, I gave her the gifts that you had made/given to her and that brought a smile to her face, "how cool" she said. Her grandfather brought her up to see us and she helped me a little around the shelter with some of the hospice ferrets. She hand fed two little old girls that had no fur and one that was probably enjoying one of her last days (Scarlett and Cece). She also received appreciative soupy kisses from Mama Fiona (also mostly furless and elderly). Although her ferrets are young and healthy, she gravitates towards the "special" ferrets, I imagine that we can guess why. I was amazed that she remembered some of the residents names and what their special challenges were. She remembered Gypsy ("the little old blind girl who lived in a bird cage"), Foxxy ("the boy with the big belly who has lymphoma"), Fedes ("the girl missing a foot"), Chloe, ("the girl from craigslist that they were going to feed to a snake"), Wood ("the boy frozen in the slush puddle"). By the time the rest of our guests arrived she had Stella and Fungo (her ferrets) dancing around with the other shelter youngsters. We let her think up a name for our newest arrival, a black sable 3 year old female "Slinky" to a more appropriate name "Belah". This name much more suited to her, is fitting in very nicely with the rest of the crew, funny that Stella and Belah are now best buddies and look amazingly alike. Fungo looks like a vanilla albino polar weasel. Since it was a nice day, we went outside and had cake and ice cream, joining our little impromptu party was Victoria and her son (they have four ferrets), my cousin Stacie and her son Nicholas, and one of our foster moms, Sharon (whose birthday it was also, although we didn't know it until she arrived) and Michele (assistant shelter director). I marveled at the sun and was so thankful that we could do something nice for this little girl. Her grandfather said that he couldn't believe how so very nice "you ferret folks" are and how wonderful we were being to Anna and her mom and the ferrets. I smiled and felt my heart warm as I already know that "us ferret people" are the best !! Diane - South Shore Ferret Care [Posted in FML 6646]