One of my strangest "what is that thing" encounters happened around the corner from my house, with Amelia. A man on the streetcorner asked what she was, and I stopped to explain. I find that most francophones, as was this guy, have a pretty positive image of ferrets, because of the children's song (look for it on Ferret Central), so I didn't get any of the "does it bite?" garbage. However, he asked me if I was going to breed her. I replied no, she's fixed, and explained why that's necessary with ferrets. To which this man responded that fixing animals kills their spirit, changes their personality, and I shouldn't have fixed her, in spite of everything I'd just told him. We had a short discussion about this, about the fact that this would either result in tons of baby ferrets or her death, but there was no shifting him. I suppose in a way he had a point, but it was a pretty radically different vision of responsible pet ownership than the one I have! I guess this explains the tremendous stray cat population in Montreal, too. I've also had the is-that-a stoat-weasel-badger-chinchilla-rat-squirrel questions, as well as "what kind of dog is that?" That last question, though, even the woman's friends laughed at her :) Regina and the animal impersonators [Posted in FML issue 1882]