I have not contributed very much to the Ferret Mailing list in the past. I have been reading the mailing list for quite some time though. I find the mailing list quite insightful and useful. I want to contribute a story about my beautiful sterling silver ferret whose name was Wolfe. Wolfe came to me as an orphan through the The Ottawa Ferret Association which I am an active member of. I brought him home in November 1990. He had a pointy nose and kept my husband and I entertained with his funny gestures. He loves coffee and as soon as a cup of coffee would get cold enough he would stick his whole face up to his ears into it, only to come out brown and spray coffee everywhere. He was always very active and always chatted away. The story has a bit of a sad ending to it. On December 15, 1991 we were about to get ready to go out when I noticed that Wolfe seemed to have trouble keeping his balance, and he was falling over while trying to get across a room. We were quite concerned and called our vet right away. We took Wolfe out to see the vet. He was diagnosed with vestibular disease. It is an inner ear infection which effects balance. Wolfe was given two kinds of medication to try to correct the problem. We were told that the headtilt could possible stay for the rest of his life. Wolfe regai and his headtilt was minimal. We thought he was going to be okay. However on January 24, 1992, we noticed that he seemed to be losing his balance once again. I called the vet right away and set up an appointment for the next morning. When we took Wolfe to the vet he was given two types of medication for a longer period of time in stronger doses. The vet suggested that if Wolfe did not improve we may wish to think about putting him to sleep because he would become a danger to himself and likely end up falling and hurting himself. They had also x-rayed his skull to make sure that there was nothing wrong with his brain. We once again took Wolfe home and gave him his medicine. However by the early morning of January 27 Wolfe was almost totally paralyzed on his left side. He could not get up to get food or water. He was helpless. He could not even chew food. We again took him to the vet who told us that he was not going to get any better if the medicine hadn't helped yet. He stated that the only right thing to do was to put him to sleep. As sad as that thought was, we knew that it had to be done. Wolfe had become toatally helpless and would likely totally starve in the long run. We agreed to put him down, through many tears I might add. I guess I am writing this story for a couple of reasons. The first is to let everyone know how brave my beautiful Wolfe was, and the second to make everyone aware of how serious inner ear infections can be. Apparently they are very common in cats and rabbits and usually require euthanasia. It seems the same can now be said for ferrets. We love our ferrets very much, they are our children. The healing process has been quite long and painful. I wanted to ask a question though and that is are sterling silvers more likely to get ill at an earlier age? Are they a weaker breed for some reason? The reason that I ask is that we had a sterling silver once who died very suddenly for medical reasons at age eight months and now Wolfe is dead at age one and a half. I have a five year old sable and a six year old albino, both are as healthy as can be, but I honestly have never had any luck with sterling silvers and I am quite reluctant to get another one because it hurts too much to lose them. I would be interested in any information anyone has on this as well as vestibular disease. Thank You for hearing my story. [Our Silver Mitt, Toby, died at 10 months of lymphosarcoma. He also had two sets of scent glands. Colours other than sable or albino are frequently the result of long intensive breeding programs, which just *might* accentuate some usually rare genetic problems. Who knows?] Lesley Guigue Ottawa Ferret Association [Posted in FML issue 0214]