well, after almost 9 months of living in a no-pets household, we are once again in a pet friendly environment (our own apartment) and have adopted a new slinky. he's a 10 week old chocolate, beautiful, very playful and companionable (he does very little exploring on his own, but rather follows us and explores whatever is nearby) that we have named Gwydeon. he does seem to like rough- housing a bit much, and is nippy (he has broken the skin on my palm once, and we've only had him two days), but seems to respond to a loud "NO!" when he tries to close his jaws too hard (i was rapping him on the nose also, but if he responds to voice only, that should rarely be necessary). i hope that the roughhousing won't be quite so intense when he's full-grown; am i being realistic? as it is, we shan't be letting strangers play with him until the biting habit is broken. since we got him from a shelter, i wonder if that's part of the reason the previous owners didn't keep him (he was with two different households before the shelter took him in at 7 weeks old!) hmm, his nickname at the shelter was "psycho"... Question: does anyone know of a good, _inexpensive_ source of ferret houses/ cages? Gwydeon's been sleeping in a cat carrier for the past few days, but he will need something larger for a long-term basis, especially if when we get our next adoptee (we expect to hold steady at two, for at least as long as we're in this apartment :). we live in maryland, inside the d.c. beltway, so something we can go pick up ourselves would be ideal... -donald, lela, and gwydeon [Posted in FML issue 1238]