Hey Howdy and happy New Year to all Just a couple of things to bring up for the new year.... 1. A ferret and her owner made the FRONT page of the Evansville Courier on December 23...just a pic and a couple of lines. Apparently the lady had taken it to the mall to get some last minute shopping done. Although it wasn't a close-up of the animal you can tell that its a ferret and it was identified as one....cool! 2. Maybe this falls under the commmon sense files, but for any of you out there that may own reptiles and fuzzies, a lesson that I learned the hard way this past week was that you should always wash your hands after handling a ferret. Putting my fuzzie away in his house, I approached one of my Burmese Python cages to make a change of water and other things, now normally she lets me go about my business uninterupted, but I guess ferret smells enough like mice. So she took a taste of my hand, only two fangs punctured, and no ones the worst for wear. The only reason that i suspect that it was the ferret smell is that she has never struck at me before and she hasn't since. Note: I have washed my hands quite thoroughly prior to any snake handling (a common sense measure i no longer ignore). 3. Theres nothing more humorous than seeing a ferret barreling top speed and hitting linolium (sp.), mine discovered the kitchen floor this way and seemed to love the slide repeating the process numerous times. 4. I was curious as to the cause of a thing I noticed over the Christmas weekend, I had taken Rat with me to my parents since I was there for the weekend. Now I knew he hated his pet carrier and all, so that may be the problem, but anyway....every time he would get out, his tail hair would be standing straight upand would remain that way until he had been out for awhile and I picked him up....new surroundings or did I miss something in the FAQ? Happy New Year to all, Ian and Rat [Posted in FML issue 1063]