I'm Paddy, and I am a Marshall Farms ferret. Uh. I was born well, late evening of November 23rd 1989. Which makes me Nine years of age. I am a playful, friendly, and somewhat talkative gib who has started to slow down just a little. Actually. A lot. I am not ashamed of my being a Marshall Farms ferret. I was born a Marshall Farms Ferret, and I will die a Marshall Farms ferret. I have come to join MF Anonymous in order to tell you my story. 6 weeks after I was born, and when my memory was a little hazy, I was taken from my mother and placed, with many other kits of the same age, into a dark box. I was still somewhat stiff and a little sore from the operation they had done a little over a week before. I arrived at the pet store after many stops and many starts. Once I got to the pet store they placed me in a little cage with others I had travelled with. I wasn't the first to be sold, nor the last. Several kits disappeared while I waited for my people to arrive, and when they came, I didn't know it, at first. The young boy dragged me out of the cage with both hands, and, quite frankly I was scared!! I admit to nipping him just a little. But he just cuddled and soothed me, and I calmed down before long. He named me then and there at the pet store. "Paddy" he said "You're coming home now" Since that day, I have lived with that boy, watched him grow as I grew alongside him. We moved house twice. Once when he left home for college, and again when he left the college dorm for an apartment. I started slowing down only recently, it's harder to get all excited as I used to, but I still get excited when he walks in the door. I'll still stand with one paw on his foot for a treat, and I'll still watch every move he makes when he's near. I sleep some more now than I used to. Actually, I get tired kind of easily, and in the last year he's started giving me some not very nice medicine every day so I don't get so tired so quickly and get all spaced out when I haven't been eating. I love my boy, as I know he loves me, and my coming from a pet store, and originally being born in Marshall Farms has no influence on our love for each other. I only hope that other ferrets and their boys and girls will learn that as we have. Paddy [Posted in FML issue 2538]