Elsa was the second ferret I got, about two years ago. She was 3 1/2 years old. She was the first of my three shelter ferrets, all from the Oregon Ferret Shelter. I guess she was a little over a year old when her family gave her up. I don't know exactly what kind of life she'd had before me, but it always seemed like it was hard for her. She was probably neglected, and definitely not handled enough. When I got her she was nippy and suspicious of your intentions. It took her a couple months to get used to me, to my picking her up and scratching her and playing w/her. She did stop nipping and got more attentive. I tend to think that social behaviors are learned by animals when they are babies and young adults, and so I wonder just how she was treated when she was little. Out of my four ferrets, she was the one who preferred to be by herself, most of the time. She had her moments though: bear posing for ferretone, dutiful attempts to acquire any shoe that dared to enter the room unprotected by humans (even shoes 4 times her size), playing blanket-toss (which always resulted in three hops and a *THUNK* as she fell off the bed). She was awfully cute when she wanted to play and would puff up and bounce around, inevitably falling over once or twice. She had the prettiest coat, thick and scruffy. Lately she'd been going through her "yellow phase" and was quite pretty. I miss her and hope she's okay, wherever she may be... Minta (Linus, Martin & Zooey) [Posted in FML issue 2201]