ferrets

Leo

Tiny

Tiny is a little albino female with big ears. She is currently 6 years 4 months old. She was originally surrendered to the shelter 9/18/04 when she was about 2 years old. She was surrendered for biting really hard, and that she did.  

She was always rather happy, but you could never drop your guard around her. She’d nail you on the wrist at every opportunity, and seemed to enjoy “leg of volunteer” on a regular basis, too. After she was at the shelter for a while, she did get better, but her biting never completely stopped. 

Leo is a DEW (dark-eyed white) male who is deaf as a stone. He, too, was surrendered for biting too hard. Leo is currently 5 years and 9 months old. He came into the shelter on 10/24/04, about a month after Tiny. Leo would bite anyone, anywhere, frequently, but not nearly as hard as Tiny. Leo, however, hated other ferrets. He used to beat the living daylights out of other ferrets, and he came with a warning about cats…don’t let him near a cat.  

One day, after Tiny had sunken her pearly whites into shelter mom’s arm yet again, she decided to try a little “attitude adjustment” with her. Sometimes ferrets bite too hard because they haven’t been told by other ferrets that it’s an obnoxious behavior. We’re had some success in reducing biting by putting a nippy ferret with another that will beat it up to give it “a taste of its own medicine.” Believe it or not, it does work. We don’t let them kill each other, and we always rescue them after a few seconds, but often enough, after a good pounding, ferrets sometimes have that little ferret-lightbulb go off inside their head … “Oh, they don’t LIKE that!” and the biting will decrease or stop. 

So the theory was that we would put Tiny and Leo together so Leo could give her a lesson and perhaps help teach her to stop puncturing people. 

Didn’t work that way. Leo jumped Tiny, Tiny beat the stuffing out of Leo, Leo fought back, and then they wandered off and took a nap together! What?!? That wasn’t supposed to happen! LOL!  

Since then, we have housed Tiny and Leo together and they have been best buddies. Go figure. 

We tried to find them a suitable home, but despite having a “white” sale and offering “$5 off per puncture” there were no takers. Finally, just about the time we decided we’d have Tiny and Leo for the rest of their lives, someone came and adopted them. They said they knew what they were doing and that Tiny and Leo would never have to live in a shelter again. That was 11/24/07.  

What actually happened was the guy and girl broke up just a month later and the guy gave Tiny and Leo away to someone else (breaking the contract they’d signed that said the ferrets would be returned to the shelter if they couldn’t keep them). The new owners kept them for a while, but apparently hadn’t read the file that came with Leo. They ended up surrendering Tiny and Leo back to the shelter when Leo dragged their new kitten under the couch and tried to kill it.  

Sigh. 

The new owners hadn’t gotten the message about feeding good food and were feeding really awful stuff. When the ferrets came back to the shelter, they were skinny and had dry, brittle fur, a common side effect of poor diet. On the other hand, these people spent a lot of time carrying the ferrets around and Tiny and Leo came home largely reformed. That just goes to show you that (a) lots of handling works and (b) ferrets are not stupid. When they came back and started getting good food again, I think they decided that they knew on which side their bread was buttered and chose to behave. At least that’s my theory. J 

Tiny is an old girl now, and is showing signs of adrenal disease. Leo is still looking good. Both act like ferrets much younger and are otherwise healthy. I suppose they’ll spend what’s left of their lives here at the shelter where Leo will NOT have the opportunity to kill kittens, they’ll get good food and vet care, and the previously-punctured volunteers can delight in being able to hold the once unholdable little dears. 

Tiny has taken a liking to being a shoulder ferret, which is quite a drastic change in her opinion of humans. Leo has developed a talent for grabbing other ferrets through the bars of the gate and trying to pull them through to the other side! Eeep! Leo is nice to people but really hates all other ferrets except Tiny. Poor guy is going to be lonely when Tiny passes. Tiny hates all other ferrets, too.  

They’ve weathered the bouncing around rather well, and seem to have come out just fine. The only thing better would be a real home for whatever time they have left. Anyone for an “antique white sale”?