ferrets

This is Cooper. He was found cowering in a maintenance shed on the California University campus in Washington, PA. We’re pretty sure someone let him loose on purpose, since when he first came, he bit like a little chocolate barracuda.

He was brought to us on 5/23/08. We guessed his birthday as 10/26/06. When he came here, he was about 1-1/2 years old.

Cooper played for hours, and did well in his lessons on how to play nicely with other ferrets. If his previous owners had spent more time with him and taught him not to bite hard when he was a baby, Cooper wouldn’t have needed these lessons. He seems to really like other ferrets, but sometimes comes on too strong.

Cooper also did well in his lessons on how to play nicely with humans. After a month or so, he no longer automatically bit when he was picked up. A large part of his rehabilitation was discovering that Ferretone is yummy. Finally, he progressed to where he would poke your ankle with his nose (and not his teeth) to get your attention.

After another month of two of shelter life, Cooper developed into a lively, handsome young ferret who was showing signs he could learn to be a good boy.

Finally, after another couple months, Cooper mellowed into a very nice young ferret. He hadn’t bitten anyone in a long time, and rather than beating up other ferrets, now it seemed he was the one being beaten up.  

In late May of 2008, he was adopted by a young man living in apartment in
Oakland. The young guy had a job, was going for an advanced degree, and was living in apartments where pets were allowed. He’d lived there for a while, and things seemed stable. 

Cooper’s new dad asked the shelter if we could babysit over the Christmas break. He didn’t want to leave his ferret, but his family couldn’t find reasonable passage on a flight to Texas. Cooper was happy enough to come to visit. We were happy to see how fat and fluffy he was. He’d become much more relaxed, and his new daddy spent lots of time playing with him. I spoke to the mother of the young man, and she told me how he was always telling her stories of funny things that Cooper did. She said Cooper was very much loved. 

Only a few days before the young man was due to come back from his break, the mother received an email from the landlord saying that pets were no longer allowed in the apartment complex. Apparently a few students with dogs had been irresponsible and now they’d ruined it for everyone. 

Cooper’s dad is heartbroken. The mom called me today and even she was in tears at the unfairness of it. She told me her son was sobbing. So now Cooper is homeless again. A young man’s heart is broken and rather than being the center of attention and getting out to play for hours every day, Cooper will once again have to share the attention with 35 other ferrets and only get out to play as the schedule permits.  

We try hard to get them out every day, but between my having a full time job and there being so many ferrets here, it’s not always possible. We play with the ferrets, they have lots of toys, but it’s just not the same as having your very own mommy or daddy.  

I hope Cooper knows he was not given up for doing anything wrong or that he wasn’t loved.

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”?

I thought you might like to see a few of the photos I took recently with a ferret theme. Naturally, the ferrets weren’t all that cooperative, but we did manage to get a few decent photos.

This is my ferret, Meringue-atang being held by Santa. It was hard to make both the ferret and Santa’s hand look white. ‘Tang is a slightly older ferret with some yellowing. I used PhotoShop and under the “Hue and Saturation” tool, I lightened yellow. Worked very well, actually.

This is another shot of Meringue-atang, this time in reindeer antlers. It was unusual that he was walking around with the antlers on. Usually ferrets take the first opportunity to get any kind of hat off at their earliest opportunity.

Here is one last photo of ‘Tang, this time in a frizzy green hair scrunchie. Scrunchies work quite well, but remember to take the tag off first, otherwise it has an annoying tendency to show in the photo.

While I’m on a roll, I figured I’d post a few more cute photos I got recently while I was playing with the beads. Little Bear didn’t seem to mind the beads at all. Meringue-atang was NOT thilled and made it his number 1 priority to get them off.

This is Little Bear, always the ham. He didn’t seem to care what I put around his neck. He was content to leave them on. He’s a mama’s boy who likes to be picked up a lot.

This is Meringue-atang right after he removed his beads. He left them inside the tunnel. I think he was pleased with himself.

This is a good example of a funny photo you just happen to get. Meringue-atang looks drunk in this shot, but he’s really just trying to get those darned beads off.

This is my favorite shot of Meringue-atang. Doesn’t he look regal?

Here is Meringue-atang with Samson. I love the expression on Samson’s face. Some of these quick shots show a ferret’s personality better than an hour’s worth of set-up shots.

This is a nice shot of Samson. Look at those feet! My goodness! He looks like he’s auditioning for the part of a duck!

Some of the best photos I’ve ever gotten were just snapped on the spur of the moment without photo sets. Unless you consider draping beads on a ferret being a photo shot, these are more candid photos than setups. But they’re cute anyway.

This isn’t the best photo in the world, but it’s cute It’s especially cute because this is a reformed biter.

Look at that face! He can still be nippy from time to time, but he’s just too cute not to pick up!

This is Geronimo offering his opinion  of the stupid beads.

Here is Geronimo on a chair, modeling his gold beads. It’s funny just how cute these guys look when you put completely weird things on them. He was quite patient with me, actually.

Technically speaking, this isn’t a very good photo. Not only does it have my leg in it, but Little Bear’s face is a bit overexposed. But these are the kinds of photos that are fun to look at in the future. It shows the personality of the ferret, and that’s what you remember.

I hope you’re not getting bored with all these photos. I’ve taken so many! Here’s one that should have a caption, but I’m just not sure what to say …

To get the ferret to stand up like that, we dangled a female ferret above his head. LOL! Maybe he’s thinking, “Ooooo … woman!”

This is Ren. He was wiggly and I made my noise, and he looks like he’s saying, “What in God’s name was THAT?! Is it going to eat me?”

This is Rocky, offering his opinion on the state of ferretdom… It might make a good Christmas ornament. “Hark the herald ferrets sing … ” Of course, if the ferret’s name was Harold, it would be “Hark, the ferret Harold sings …”

This darling little girl named Angel had given me quite a scare. I’d been hunting for her for over half an hour when I found her in this tissue box. It needs a caption, but I’m drawing a blank.

This is Peter-Peter-Finger-Eater and Clarisse, two rather nippy little critters, shortly after they dismantled one of my photo shoot sets. I swear Clarisse is looking at someone saying, “Hey! You said to smile for the camera! He’s smirking! Make him stop! Mom!”

What do you think Gus here is thinking? I’m not sure, but I’m certain it contained cuss words. LOL! He’s just gotten a bath (which they don’t like much anyway) and the volunteer helping me decided to give him a mohawk. Heh. Some ferrets seem to object to that sort of thing more than others.

What do you think this ferret was saying? I think maybe, “Hey! This thing moves! Cool.” Or maybe, “Oh darn, my nail is caught! Now what??”

“Hey! No fair scaring me! Mom, he scared me!”

And of course, this is one of my favorites. The “Angry Bunny” photo. I’ve made some stickers from this one thay say, “I am NOT a rodent! Look at these teeth! Do they look like rodent teeth to you?”

Are you getting bored with this yet? I hope not! I don’t seem to ever get bored looking at these photos.

This is Chico. He looks like he’s winking at me! I’d love to see what people could come up with for a funny caption for this photo!

This was a candid shot, and not from a photo shoot, but it’s one of my favorite “tongue” shots … this is what happens when you give two ferrets some Ferretone … they decide to clean off each others’ faces! LOL! This is a good shot of Laredo’s tongue — he’s a big boy and has a wide tongue! Any ideas for captions for this one?

This isn’t a tongue shot, but it’s from another one of my photo shoots. This is Little Bear, one of my personal ferrets. He was just a baby here, and was very frightened. I draped him on the box (covered in that bright orange fabric) and made that noise. He was terrified! Poor little thing looked like his eyes were going to pop right out of his head!

I never get tired of looking at cute ferret photos, and my favorites are the ones most people would consider not good enough to print. I love the tongue photos and the funny faces, too. Yesterday I published a set of cute photos with rather funny faces. Here are a few more.

This is Kali’s cute little tongue showing. You can tell they really, really like that Ferretone stuff. I like it, too, as long as my helper doesn’t squirt it all over my favorite backdrop. This was an incredibly soft piece of material that was so soft, all the ferrets wanted to curl up in it. I was very disappointed when a helper managed to dribble Ferretone all over it. For some reason (maybe because it’s oil-based) that stuff stains worse than anything I’ve ever tried to get out.

If you look closely, you can just see where Leo has reeled in his tongue after a manly slurp. If you think he looks alert and hopeful, that’s because he is really hoping for a lot more of that tasty treat. And if he can’t get more Ferretone, he’d be happy to settle for a little human blood. He’s one of the nippier guys at the shelter. I don’t know why, but people just don’t seem very interested in the ones who draw blood.

This is one of my favorite backdrops, and one of my favorite photos. Raven looks like he’s ready to pick a fight with someone. “Who are YOU lookin’ at?” His little nose is even crinkled a little. It’s a tiny bit blurry, since this was just moments after one of those big licks, but definitely worth keeping. A lot of these funny photos just beg for captions.

Tomorrow: more cute and funny photos

Yesterday I mentioned how sometimes I’d get some very funny faces using the Ferretone as a way to keep the ferrets still. Here are some funny, yet still really cute results.

This is Nibbles. You’d think she was looking incredibly demure for a ferret. Actually, she has just completed a very large slurp. Some ferrets will fastidiously clean their chops after a taste of Ferretone. Left slurp, right slurp, left slurp … look for more.

Jillybean, here, isn’t laughing at me (although it sure does look like it, doesn’t it?). She’s just trying to get that tongue under control. She’s just completed a nice, thorough slurp and her tongue is currently curled up in a ball inside her mouth, savoring every last drop of Ferretone-y goodness.

Duchess here, was caught in mid-lick. She’s a dainty slurper, only showing a little tongue. It comes off as looking incredibly dainty and cute. Of course, that ferret was a huge female. Most females are pretty small compared to the males, but this one was a hefty little girl with a delightful personality.

Bitsy here is showing just a bit more tongue. Still pretty cute, but you’re getting a better idea of just how long a ferret’s tongue really is! Some are positively astonishing. I’ll save those photos for next time.