What Scott said about the psychological pain of losing ferrets due to escape is so true. When you never find them, you are always sad, worrying about them, dreaming that they will come back, crying when you think of them freezing or starving or meeting some other awful end. Terrible as it is to lose a ferret through illness, old age, or accident, at least you KNOW what happened. Not knowing what happened to my precious Cody and Dale is just tearing me up. Another thing Scott was perhaps too kind to say is that I feel terrible GUILT over what happened. I should have prevented this. It shouldn't have happened. They are in my care and I failed them. Oh, I know it was a careless young child who left the door open, and no one had any idea it was open, and it was the dead of winter and why would anyone even open a door in the first place? But they're gone and I feel sad and guilty, and like I don't ever deserve to have another ferret ever again. Megabyte, the one who was found, and Chip, the old man who slept through the whole thing, seem very sad. Even though they now bunk together, you can tell how sad each one is, looking for his former cagemate and seeming very lonely. And I miss Cody and Dale so much too. Kat [Posted in FML issue 2209]