Hello All, Today I am not going to post my usual light or humorous post, today I am being very serious. Of late, there seems to be quite a few postings relating to one or more of our beloved furry friends escaping into the outdoors. For someone who has never had this happen to them, it is hard to imagine the degree of pain, guilt, and fear one experiences. It is also easy to fall into the "that would never happen to me because I am so careful" frame of mind. I once had a very EXPERIENCED ferret person relate to me her story of a ferret escape. This lady's basement is set up for the ferrets and is home to many of her shelter ferrets. Since the area was "ferret proofed", there was much concern when one of the shelter babies could not be located. At first, it was believed that she had simply found an out of the way place to sleep. After searching all the usual and the not so usual spots, it was determined that somehow the ferret had gotten out. The shelter owner began to check the basement and discovered that there was an opening to the outside from the area where the dryer hose was located. As the opening was located quite high from the floor, the ferret would have had to have climbed the dryer hose and squeezed herself between the hose and the wall. Luckily, the ferret was located a short while later, but not in time to cause the shelter owner a great deal of anguish. We got our first ferret in 1985. We knew absolutely nothing about how to care for these little guys much less about ferret proofing. After a couple of years of ferret ownership, Scott left the window open in his office. Our ferrets had free roam of the house at this point and when I came home from work and prepared to feed the "kids", discovered Rascal was missing. I searched the house and finally noticed a small hole in the screen in Scott's office. Rascal had gotten outside. We live in a highly wooded area and the closest neighbor is over 3 city blocks away. We searched everywhere, alerted the neighbors, spent nights outside just in case he came back during the night time hours, called for him, used the squeeky toy that we train our ferrets to come to, and still he was not located. The following year, while Scott and I were on vacation, another of our ferrets escaped from the ferret sitter's care. Again, we searched and did all we could do to locate Button. She was never found. I feel that dealing with an escapee who is not located is more psychologically draining on a person than losing that little one to death. With the death of a beloved pet or human, one experiences the feeling of finality. One can begin to deal with the pain because one is aware that death has occurred. With an escapee or a runaway, that feeling of finality is not there. There is always the feeling of hope that he/she might return and be there just waiting outside for his owner to come and open the door for him so he can come back in. One also wonders where he is and if someone found him, "is he being cared for". It has been over 12 years now since Rascal escaped and I still wonder where he is. Does the pain go away?--No, because it is not finalized. Margaret, Scott and the 16 (let's count noses) wonder weezils Exclusively Ferrets [Posted in FML issue 2205]