Hi all . . . This will be my last post Re my ferret, Smokey, until I receive the lab report from Animal Control--then I'll post what I find out from that. Sukie: I don't mind the information that I gave being questioned, though I do find your openly skeptical tone a bit insulting. I'm passing the information along the best I can w/o having the report to refer to, and w/o having been present at the time. Please keep in mind the incident happened over a year ago, and the child's mother was hysterical when she called me at 4 am. The whole reason I related the story was to point out that the animal was NOT being accused of "just suddenly becoming vicious" and was not being used as a scapegoat. There was background info that animal control DOES NOT include in their statistics of reported bite incidents. The ferret, who had never been caged long-term in her life, was caged EXCESSIVELY before the bite incident, which could have been a contributing factor to the biting. The other issue was an unchecked and untreated infestation of ear mites. Whether they were actually *in* the brain, I don't know, and I'm waiting for the lab report, which I mentioned in FML two days ago, which should at least partly answer your questions about the report today. I also think the ferret should have been in a more secure cage at night--this would have never happened if they'd had Smokey in the cage I provided. The little girl turned 3 about a month after she was bit. The doctor *stopped counting* puncture wounds when he reached 30--two wounds per bite makes 15+ bites, on cheeks, ears, head, nose, and eyes. I called it "chewed up"--what else do you call that many bites at one time? A couple is 2, a few is 3 or 4 . . . It was 4 am when she was bitten, and she's a "hard" sleeper and wakes up disorientated (She's going to be a coffee drinker, I bet--wakes up slow and crabby <grin>). She's always been this way, and probably waking up in pain caused even more disorientation. By the time her screams woke up mom and mom got into the room, the child was holding Smokey at arms length . . . and had *already* been bitten that many times. Perhaps some ferrets are slow, but mine have always been very quick. And 3 year olds don't have the greatest coordination in the world, either. Yes, there are scars, a lot of them, still. I said there would be no PERMANENT scarring--her young resiliant skin will shed old cells, renew itself, and in a few years the scars will disappear. In a year's time they've faded quite a bit. Ok, my use of "convulsing" was poor word choice. "Freaking out" describes what was *described to me* better. They said she was throwing herself at the cage door and sides, rolling, thrashing, writhing, and biting anything she could reach. She was acting this way when they left for the hospital, and still when they returned, and kept it up until animal control took her away, four hours later. Anim. contr. transferred her to their own cage wearing gloves, and even then, she got away twice. I can only hope they treated her humanely. It breaks my heart to consider that they might have been impatient and cruel. I quote the mother when I say "Smokey was not the same sweet animal she had been the day before." And I don't think they were using her as a scapegoat--they were never angry at Smokey for biting, just wanted to know what caused that behavior. I'm not "dissing" ferrets--I have one again, now that I have an "animal friendly" landlord, and I love my Pepper very much. I'm addicted to the little critters. The child's mother likes Pepper too, and the child herself is crazy about him--she wasn't traumatized by being bit, and her family hasn't gone on a "ferret-bashing" crusade. Far from that--they've wracked their brains to figure what happened to make her bite that way. When cats and dogs bite, most people assume they've been mistreated somehow. When ferrets bite, the general public assumes they're "wild animals." Samantha was bitten pretty seriously--I was trying to relate the oddness of the behavior and find underlying reasons for it, I was not attempting to "ferret-bash." I don't know if this post appeases any skepticism, perhaps only having known animal and child would accomplish that, but I hope I answered some of the questions. When I get the lab report, I'll let everybody know what it says. Until then, there's no point debating the information--I've explained everything that I can, with only the best of intentions. --Sherri [Posted in FML issue 1733]