Victoria - I know you made the right choice for Antigone. My very first ferret had numerous problems all during his life, and I was always able to pull him through with TLC, and special attention to diet. Just before he turned 7, my young male [the one who just had his adrenal gland removed] used to always want to play with him, and pestered him so much he stopped trying to get up to eat. I separated him from the others and brought him to the vet. Although he was very ill, we decided to work with him and set a time limit on how long we would treat him without significant improvement. He was in early stages of liver failure, according to my vet, from his lack of eating. He got better rapidly, and things looked good-then my dog, who I had rescued after he was hit by a UPS truck, attacked the cage with him in it one night when I went to work. As the dog had some brain damage, and was not always predictable with people other than me, my parents called me home from work. The long and short of it is, that although Helix was not injured directly by the dog, it was such a shock to his system that everything shut down. I tried for three days to get him to come around but he had lost the will to live. I had him euthanized at that point. I have always regretted that I waited those three days, because he was in bad shape, and cried at night, and wouldn't sleep with me as he usually did. Because I kept hoping I could help him, I unintentionally made him suffer more. Looking back on it, I wish that I had had the courage to do as you did with Antigone. Re. Helix's burial - When I lived out in Colorado, The very first ferret I ever rescued was a special buddy of his. She died when she went in to get spayed. When I brought her home, Helix tried to crawl in the box with her. I had her cremated so that when Helix died I could bury them together. We have a camp in the Adirondack mountains, where some of my best times have been, so I brought them up there, and buried them next to the raspberry thicket by our property. Now they are at my favorite place, and I visit the grave every time I go to camp. Re. litter : for a long time I used rabbit pellets in their pans, because I am allergic to clay litter. Recently I switched to a product called Neat n Sweet. It doesn't have the overwhelming odor that rabbit pellets do. I found it at Price Chopper & Grand Union with the regular cat litter. I will grant you that rabbit pellets are much cheaper. about $8 for 50 pounds. Janice and the zoo [Posted in FML issue 0758]