| Vol. 2, No. 4 | 21 Aug, 2002 |
We got a nice fan letter from Rikki and Slinky, a pair of ferrits who were referred to us by Angel and Freckles, who we mentioned an issue or two back. It turns out that their favorite place is under the bed. We'll agree that beds are fine places to be, but we still think that to really get a good collection of stuff under whatever you're under, it's got to be a couch and it's got to be in the living room. Still, these ferrets may be on to something. The cats, especially Tiger, tell us that the area under a couch is nothing to compare with the area under a teenage boys bed. Tiger spends a lot of time in Michael's room and tells us that there's so much stuff under HIS bed that she can't even get under it, and doubts that we could either.
We read the news group alt.pets.ferrets whenever we can, and have noticed that a lot of our brothers and sisters in fur have been passing on. We decided to try to mention them here when we read about them. We started keeping track just after the last issue of this newsletter, and include them below. If we missed anyone, or you'd like your fuzzie remembered here and they passed on before we started watching, please send us an e-mail and we'll note them next issue.
Jack, Jake, Siva, Buttons, Winnie, Tigger, Brutus, Davey, Tippy, Rosie and Twinky have all gone to the Rainbow Bridge .
Well, they cleaned under the couch, curse the luck. Both of them, in fact. Every thing is clean. Not even any dust kitties. My (Minya's) fault. We were out playing last week, and I found a great place to take a nap. Unfortunately, when it came time to go back in the cage, I didn't wake up and the humans went into a bit of a panic trying to find me. They moved all the couches and tables and such, which is never a good idea from our ponit of view, because Bill usually decides that if he has to move it, he may as well clean under it while he's there. So, after standing the couches on end looking for me, he left them there while they continued the search. When I finally woke up and came out to see what all the noise was about, it was too late. I went back in the cage and he cleaned out the stuff we and the human kids had been collecting under the couch. I think we'll miss Dan's old socks most.
No dust kitties, but we HAVE had a for real kitten with us for a while now. She's a speedy buzz bomb with even sharper teeth and claws than we have. She's moving on to a new foster home soon, so we won't get to see how she grows up. But at least she's not afraid of ferrets. The important thing, though, is that SHE appreciates it under the couch too. The humans wouldn't let us play with her under the couch. Some fool idea we'd hurt her. But we did get to play with her on the kitchen table a bit, and watch from our cage as she played in the hall and under the couches.
We also almost met another foster cat during play time. A full grown really BIG boy called Bandit. He leaped over the wall thing they use to keep us in the living room while we're out playing. He looked at us like we were REALLY big rats. Bill put him back out in the hall before we could get over to say "hello." We talk a bit more about Bandit later in this article.
The human condition seems to be improving around here. The troubles of the last few months are getting put in perspective. That stuff motivated Bill to track down an old fried he hadn't talked to in a long lot of years. They're going to get together soon, which we can see makes him happy. We continue to get out for little walk-abouts many evenings. Sometimes only one at a time, but to places we don't usually go. Bill says it's too hard to make sure three of us don't get in trouble some of the places he's been letting us play lately, but we all get to go to those places, just not all at the same time. Sometimes it's fun to get all the humans attention for a while.
We've had a pretty good month or so since the last news letter. We got to play all over the living room several times. We've been in the shower a couple of times. We've played in the kitchen, the cat room and Bill's office. We've gotten to play with Shift (the only cat here who seems to like ferrets). It's been a grand old time. We got to play "scare the human" while Bill cleaned our cage. You play that by running up his arm while he's scooping out the cage, then climbing to the very edge of his shoulder and making like you're going to leap to the floor. Very entertaining. Quasimodo fell off while he was doing that. Or maybe he didn't figure out he was only supposed to be pretending. He won't admit anything. He did fall to the floor with a very satistfying "plop." But he was too slow to run under the counter before Bill picked him up. I made it all the way out to the kitchen and under the dish cabinet. Bill thought I want under the freezer, and had it unplugged in a flash. But Maggie the dog gave me away. She saw me go under the cabinet, and was stairing at it, then looking at Bill, then back at the cabinet. I'll have to figure out what to bribe Maggie with for the next time I get away. When they cleaned under the couches they also pulled out all the dog toys, so we can't use those just yet. The dogs have already lost a few of tthem under the couches again, so maybe that will work. She really likes the big blue squeeky ball. Well, so do we, but sometimes sacrifices have to be made.
The cat who sleeps on top of our cage (Nikki) has been getting more interesting. Mostly that's because Razzle discovered that there was shelf way up near the top of the cage, right under the spot Nikki sleeps. If we don't use it too often, Nikki sort of forgets it's there. Then we can wait until she's snoozing, slink up to that shelf, and poke her with our noses. She comes awake fast making the best noises. And did you know that not only can cats levitate (as Shift showed us a few issues back) but they can sort of fly too? At least Nikki seems to be able to.
Back to that big cat, Bandit, who's visiting with us. He lives in the cat room most of the time, and pretty much only comes out when the dogs are locked up for the night. But then he comes out an plays with Shift and talks to us. He's really waiting to find a new home where there are no dogs. The combination cat and laundry room used to be just the cat room, but the iguana (now departed) and Road Kill and I used to live in there too. We used to get out to play in there a lot, and the place was carefully ferret proofed. Well, Bill checked out the washer and dryer to make sure they were ferret proof too, then let us all out to play in there last week. Quasimodo and Razzle never got to play in there before. By the time they came to live here, the ferret cage was in the front hall, right outside the living room. We get a lot more attention there, but the cat room was nice too. I remembered all the places to climb and hide and showed them to Razz and Quasi. Being as it's the laundry room now too, there were some piles of laundry around waiting to be washed and one clean pile waiting to be folded. We have a great time. Since it was daytime, Bandit was in there hiding from the dogs. Shift and Trouble were visiting him. We had a great time, what with ferrets leaping off piles of laundry and cats flying off shelves when we climbed up. If you've never let your ferrets play in the laundry, you should try it. Just make sure they can't get inside the washer or dryer, either through the regular doors or through any openings, which are usually in the back. Some washers and dryers have air vents in the back or along the front which are ferret sized. Ours don't, but Bill tells us we used to have a drier that had no back. That would be very bad if it started up with us in it.
We'll try to report back more often on how things are going around here. We've been having a lot of play time, but usually Bill's on the computer so we don't get much of a chance to write these news letters.