I caught the spleenectomy on Animal Planet. Pretty interesting - the gas mask was huge for the ferret and covered most of his head (his head was entirely in this funnel thing up to his ears), it seemed a fairly small incision and I was sort of shocked the way the Dr. stuck his finger in and started....just smooshing it around and around. Yikes! He then gets a few more fingers in there and starts pulling out this organ that he proclaimed "huge, I've seen dog spleens that were smaller" (never having seen a spleen before I had to take his word:) It was so big and engorged with blood they had to shrink it because if they just cut it off the ferret wouldn't have had enough blood left. So they squirted something on it (adrenal something? a steriod of some type?) and it became the amazing shrinking spleen right before your eyes! They then cut it off and it was over. The thing that got me though is the woman who narrates this regular show (one of the Vet ones I forget) asked the owner who was in watching the surgery something to the effect - why are you spending all this money on a ferret (put nicer of course) and what do you say to your family and friends about it? Sheesh - this is a gooshy animal show and somehow ferrets don't quite rate! The women just quietly replied that if you have an animal your responsible for it. In the end the cute sable went home with some stitches and seemed ok. As for shelter polices that do a lot of asking - I applaud it. I've done very little rescue and already had some bad experiences with people who want ferrets - the more research the better. It may be a little intrusive (big deal) but there are good reasons so suck it up. It would have been more reasonable to work something out with Ed up front - hey we understand you want to make sure but we don't want to become part of your extended family so is X number of calls and visits with X number of hours notice ok? As for Seattle, I wish I weren't serious but I think there's some room for some heavy duty chlorine in the human gene pool. At the very least this woman should get the police to put a restraining order on this kid for her own safety. She should also sue him for costs (there's no monetary value you can place on these little lives and this kind of torture but I'd do it just to go for him somehow) Maybe one of the larger animal welfare organizations will help? If she got a positive ruling and/or he broke the restraining order at least that might get him a little jail time. In my fantasy I invest in a few baseball bats and invite some friends and him over to "make up". Yes I'm mad and I'm not going to apologize because I'm tired of the way sick people make me feel ill. Mary, Giesela and Boris and Booker the rescue dog P.S. Giesela has for the first time put on weight this winter - I love it! She has the "X" in her ear so I guess she's a Maple Leaf fan. Her coat has never been long or thick but right now she is the softest ferret I've ever felt! Lately I've caught her licking the butter I have out - I wonder is this part of it? Boris is such a treat hound and begs and begs for cat food (high quality that I dole out a bit at a time but I wish he'd eat more of his TF), ferret bites, dog biscuits and the apparently WONDERFUL dog food. So needless to say he has not put on weight. Its so weird how Boris and Giesela are like night and day:) [Posted in FML issue 2144]