Yesterday, at sew day for Crafty Weasels, I did something that reminded me of something I had realized years ago. The monthly meeting was held at Florence Love's house. She has 3 ferrets. One of them who is as sweet as could be, and 2 boys that have quite the reputation of being "biters". Their names are Evander (yes, as in the boxer! and Tyson, as is Mike Tyson, the guy who bit a chunk of his opponent's ear off! That should give you an idea how real the threat of a serious bite is. Now over the years, Florence has done and A M A Z I N G job with these two boys, showering them with love and the biting has gotten better, but still I for one, hesitate (actually I just don't do this!) in putting fingers or noses in front of either one of them. As the day passed, I kept seeing Evander up at the clear barrier that separates the kids room from the rest of the house, standing there, scratching at it with a look that clearly said, "Please hold me". And to that look I replied, I'm not going to even try to hold you, you bite! At the end of each Sew Day, we get a group picture, and we almost always have a fuzzy or two in the picture. Someone asked me,"Do you want to hold Tyson?" to which I repleied, "No, he bites" My point of all this is in that moment, I realized that I had been denying him love and affection because he was "a biter". Not wanting to risk being bitten because I want to keep my nose and fingers with me for quite a while longer, I wouldn't hold him. It wasn't their fault. Something happened to them to have them be this way, And as I said, Florence has done WONDERS with these boys. Here are these two poor babies being denied love, affection, and attention when THAT is the VERY thing they need the most. Florence gave them them all that they needed and continues to do so, I didn't even try, I just stayed back from them (well I did say hello...from a distance) I just denied them, I didn't even try because of their past bad reputation as "biters" I think I'm trying to say is that a bad reputation, a simple word or two, can be accepted and that the person or pet can be treated accordingly because of this reputation, or one can love anyway for who they themselves see in front of them. They can be given them what they truly need. It seems to me that most of the time the ones with the bad reputations are the very ones who need to be taken for themselves the most, not be known by their reputations. I totally treated Evander and Tyson according to their reputations. Florence was WELL AWARE of the boys reputations years ago, but she chose to take them for themselves. Poor, frustrated, scared boys. It was the love that came from doing that, that changed those boys, yet still I was afraid, because of that bad reputation. I had a "biter" too, years ago, a very bad "biter" and had the same resuts with giving her what she needed,and not basing my complete opinion of her bad reputation. So, back to that moment when I thought, "no I won't hold you because of your biting reputation", I was reminded. Each and every ferret is different, each and ever human is different. I should make my own opinions before I act on the words of anothers. I'm so sorry Evander and Tyson, I'll do better next time. Sorry for the long winded rambling. Dooks To All Of You, Sue [Posted in FML 7488]