Hi! My name is Ziggy and my mom has been lurking on the list for about two months now. We wanted to take the opportunity to introduce ourselves and make some comments. Mom and Dad got their first ferret in 1987, while they were in graduate school in upstate New York. That was a little sable female named Felicia, and she was the start of a ferret dynasty. The grad school years were blessed by several more ferrets, and Mom says thank god Citibank gave credit cards to people who made $11 thousand a year! Their ignorance was bottomless, but they have muddled through over the years even though several of my brothers and sisters have gone on to invade roomier, more ethereal spaces. I am a three year old brown on brown male, slim, athletic, and highly intellectual. I share my cage with my brothers Spot, who is about 7 months old, and, if you'll pardon me, a real dork; and Othello ("Ozzie"), a 7 to 8 year old albino who is getting on in years and has some problems (blind from cataracts, severe dental disease). Mom and Dad don't know how old he is because they found him in a ten gallon aquarium in a petstore, sniffling, wheezing, lonely, pretty much full grown--he was a return and when Mom and Dad saw him, Mom turned to Dad and said "Go home and get the license. He's not going back into that tank". She sat on the floor with him in her lap until Dad came back with the ferret permit and the checkbook. I became head of the family this spring, when my 9 year old brother Zoot, a handsome bruiser of a sable male, passed on. Zoot and I have very different management styles; I prefer to manipulate the humans into getting what I want, whereas Zoot favored a sharp nip on the big toe when he didn't get enough attention. Either way, I think I'm doing fine. I keep my people and brothers in line, and Dad keeps his carpet repair skills up. It's a good trade. Well, the primary reason I wanted to post was put my two cents in on the whole raisins-as-ferret-treats issue. I have only this to say: THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! I have never had such complete pleasure in my entire life. I have been taught to "polecat"--sit up on my fanny and balance myself upright--for raisins. It's a trivial trick really. I do it on my own whenever the red raisin canister is in sight. I am not fooled by the Quaker Oats canister either. Humans are very foolish to think we can be hoodwinked like that. Othello likes them too, although Spot thinks they are yucky. In this area, Mom is a dork; she won't give me more than 2 or three a day, and she won't let me eat Spot's rejects if I've had my quota. I may have mentioned earlier that Spot is a dork. Mom says she loves him anyway. Anyhow, that's us, our little five-person-three-four-legged-two-two-legged-family. Mom learns new stuff from the FML every day, and tells us about it. We visit with her when she is on the computer--the Ferretone bottle is next to the computer--and she reads the interesting bits to us too. She is concerned because Dad took a job someplace called Ca-Ca land (we were sorta wondering where he disappeared to...Mom has been kinda lonely, and that phone thing goes off all the time), and she says we have to move there too. She says we can ride in our Sherpa (we like to sleep in it anyhow, when we're tired of playing), but that we have to be very, very quiet. I'm not supposed to dig while in some big metal flying tube for five hours. Yeah, right. That's right up there with the Quaker Oats canister. Anyhow, that's probably a month or so off. I'll take it under advisement. She would like to hear (privately) from anyone (or, anyone's "friend") who has accomplished such a travel feat. It's really making her nervous. Especially getting through airport security. Anyway, we send our regards and thanks to everyone in ferret land. And to those who's friends have passed over, cry not: there are at least two remote controls apiece, and the raisins fall like rain at regular intervals. Every ferret knows that! Cheers, Ziggy, Othello, and Spot (and Mom, who is also called Katy) [Posted in FML issue 1756]