Greetings all- Life is slowly starting to adjust to Taz's leaving. I go to the vet's to discuss the post-mortem this afternoon, so I'll post on it when I get some answers. I may even have some questions for the vets on the list after I'm done (from what Dr. Gilbert said it doesn't sound simple). Craig and I took the two boys out to snuffle around in the woods a while ago. Baxter was very excited; Craig had his leash, and wandered off behind a ferret sniffing and pawing at everything in a very systematic fashion. In under two minutes, he'd tracked down a mouse nest and caught a baby mouse in his jaws. Craig managed to get it away from Baxter (I think Bax dropped it) and gave it a more merciful death. It's very hard to believe sometimes that ferrets can't survive in the wild when they show that kind of instinct. Baxter went a little crazy and we had to cage him for a few hours before he calmed down. I gave him some ferretone and mildly wished he didn't resemble a wild animal quite so much. Then he did my heart good the next day by prefering to snuffle around in Craig's coat rather than out in the grass. Phew!! Perhaps I'm being paranoid because of Taz, but I'm a little concerned about Jasper. My 2.5 yr old is overweight (about 3.6 lbs) in the classic pear shape, and that may be contributing to some stuff. His breathing is a little funny sometimes- well, somewhat noisy like a fat man's. :-) He's drinking a prodigious amount, and stinkily peeing it all out. His eyes have had a little dried goop in the corners lately. His coat is going a tad yellow. I feed him a Eukanuba chicken & rice and Iams for older cats mixture twice a day to try to drop some of that weight, which hasn't happened yet. He gets supplements for extra health, as well. Other than changing his diet (a distinct possibility), is there any health issues I should be aware of? Did I mention he's the laziest thing on four legs I've ever seen? Couches. Baxter *loves* to wriggle under the cushions and enthusiatically push them to the floor, dig at the back and slither into the couch. It's old, it needs replacing, so I let him occasionally. He loves it when I'm sitting on the couch, because it sags just enough that he gets easier access to the interior; I'm fortunate that he's pretty safe in there, but I always check before I sit. When I replace it I'll buy a futon and move the couch & chair into the ferret room (which I'll also have when I move). My love to all the fuzzies, and sympathies to those who are sick. Ariel and her fesnyng ========================================================================== The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese Ariel White [log in to unmask] ========================================================================== [Posted in FML issue 2414]