A sad day at the funhouse

I am sad to report that Lil, the oldest of my bunch, passed away this
morning at about 11 am. She succumbed to the melanoma. She
lived to the ripe old age of 8 years and 3 months. A feat surpassed
at this house only by Mishka, who made it to 9. I had to go off
this morning and have some oral surgery performed, a wisdom
tooth that needed to come out because there was a cyst in there
pushing it into my jaw. The cyst is benign, so that is good.
Lil being the sweetheart that she was waited until I got back so we
could say goodbye, she passed on in my arms. So now she can play
with her brother Phil, and her cage mates Starlight, Sinbad, and,
Snowdrop again.
Lil was a really good girl, but she had her sneaky streak too. For
the longest time her favorite game was to wait at the door when she
knew I was coming and try to sneak out. This is how I acquired the
automatic reflex of bending over and reaching for a ferret whenever I
enter the room. One of the best escapades that happened because
of her adventurous nature is documented in the posting of
Tuesday September 12, 2006 .
I will miss Lil a lot, she was here from the time she was 8 weeks old
and I believe she liked living here. Lil and her brother Phil were new
to this house when the house was new. They were named after
the twin babies on the Nickelodeon cartoon Rugrats. Bye bye
Lil, we all loved you dearly!

Phil is on the left and Lil is hanging on the side.This is the day they arrived

Latest news from the Funhouse

Last time I posted anything was when Picasso arrived and became JJ's roomie, that was the end of July. Since then things have gone on in a relatively
peaceful fashion. Picasso was a little shy when he first moved in, but
that changed as soon as he became accustomed to the place. He is now
what I would refer to as the biggest wise ass of a ferret I have seen in a
long while. When he and JJ come out to play, he is going 100 miles an hour
or so. He is a jumper, he pounces on my shoes, ankles, shins, whatever
he can get at. If I am wearing shorts, I have to put him away until I finish
the litter box cleaning or I won't get it done. He certainly keeps JJ active.
One thing I wish he would stop, is his decision that the rice bucket is a
litter box. Nobody has ever done that until he got here. I caught him red
handed at it a few times. He is very unapologetic about it. Oh well, what
are you going to do. He has definitely livened things up. I will post some
pictures later on.
We also saw a couple of birthdays, the matriarch of the crew, Lil, turned
8 years old in August, hooray! She is slowing down a bit, but still gets
around and has her treats and soup. She has her routine she goes
through every morning, because she is senior ferret of the crew, she gets
the daytimes out while I am at work. In the morning I get soup ready for all,
I have my own special recipe, which seems to be a hit with the crew. I heat
up bowls full in the microwave and serve. Lil is last because she eats out.
I bring Picasso and JJ their soup, which they tuck right into, then I grab
Ozzie and Sasha and put them in with theirs. Ozzie is awesome, you can
hear him drinking his soup from across the room like a dog in a water bowl.
Then I bring in Lil's and take her out, give her a hug and set her down for
her soup. She likes me to dip my finger in and let her sample a couple of
times, before she eats. After she eats she goes over to the tube and
crawls through, stopping in the middle a couple times for a few minutes
of grooming. After that she stops by the other guys houses to say hi, then
she goes in the playhouse for a nap. Again, some pictures will appear soon.

September was JJ's 7th birthday, he looks pretty darned good for such an old
fart. He still gives me a war dance every day when he comes out, and hates
to be held for too long. He and Picasso get time out from when I get home
until I go to bed. This is when I clean out the litter boxes, so they have great
fun staying as much under foot as possible. After that they get their cookies,
Totally Ferret treats, and then they play. JJ doesn't fit in the tube anymore,
so Picasso can hide there from him. This is because of the prednisone JJ
must take for his melanoma. Seems to be working so far, he doesn't know
he's sick. Maybe next time we do the Childrens Museum the 2 of them can go.
That would be fun.
Well, I have spent enough time for now. Those are the latest happenings
from the Ferret Fun House. If you want my Ferret soup recipe, send an email and I will type it up. It changes sometimes depending on what is on hand,
but the kids like it. Chow for now.

Picasso joins the funhouse!

Last Sunday I drove out to Ferretwise for a cookout and to pick up a
new friend who has moved into the "fun house". His name is Picasso,
he comes from down in Massachusetts somewhere. His human
couldn't care for him because he liked to dig into the couch and was
a rough player with the other ferrets. So he moved in with me and my
guys. He turns out to be a very sweet little guy. He is still unsure of
himself at the moment, but is getting used to things.

He was either going to move in with Ozzie and Sasha or JJ, I was
hoping JJ would accept him, he's starting to get a little funny all alone.
He had a 3 hour drive up to where I got him and got to hang around
in a playpen while we humans socialized. He had fun it seemed.
One of the funniest moments came when one of the people, I for
the life of me cannot remember her name, was visiting him and she
said, "He pooped and it is firm and well formed!", everyone let out
a cheer. Then we laughed at ourselves. We are an odd bunch for
sure. ( There were fears he had ingested some of the couch he had
liked to dig in, thus blocking things ).

Anyhow, after all the cookout fun, I collected Picasso and we had a 2
hour drive home, he slept the whole way. Now the fun could begin, but
it turned out not to be as bad as I thought. I brought Picasso in and
stuck him out with JJ and JJ did NOT tear right into him as he usually
does with other ferrets. A few minutes of obligatory butt sniffing went
on and then they went about their business! I was ecstatic! It seems
JJ had a new room-mate. There was a tense moment or two in the
playhouse when JJ did a little authority asserting, but other than that
things went smoothly. Huzzah! The only other problem happened
when I put them away so Ozzie and Sasha could come out. JJ tore
into Picasso for some reason, so I grabbed Picasso out and put
him down on the floor and had a few words with JJ. When I put Picasso
back in, JJ was sweet as pie, I even caught him grooming Picasso. They
share the hanging tent thing piled on top of each other. So all is well.
He hasn't acquired a taste for my soup yet, which is fine with JJ, more
for him!

So that is the latest fun from the fun house. With the new addition
the count is 5. Lil has her 8th birthday coming up in August, so we
will be celebrating a little. That is all for now.

Another Day at the BCM

Last Saturday, May 16th, I packed up JJ and some supplies, ( treats
and food for JJ, and paper towels, a plastic Market Basket bag,
and a scoop to clean up when necessary), and we headed into
the Boston Children's Museum to do a ferret "Critter Day". I
started off in good time, but at the bank discovered my ATM
card was broken so I had to run back home and get my checkbook
in order to get some cash, so that threw a wrench into the
works. For a while I kept the music down low so as not freak out
my little companion, but then I remembered he is deaf as a post,
so I got to listen to tunes on the way in. I still managed to get
there 10 minutes before we opened, but I had hoped to get
there at 10:30 to help with bringing everything up. Oh well.

Dino and I were on the second floor right next to the big chess set
with, JJ, Elrich, Destiny, Blossom, and Barney. Alicia and Skyla were
upstairs on the third floor with a bunch too, although I don't know
who was with them ferret wise. It didn't take long before the kids
found us and we were greeting them and letting them meet the
ferrets. We had a playpen set up for the ferrets to frolic in, and
so the kids could see the ferrets being ferrets. Dino's bunch was
out first, JJ couldn't be out with them because he doesn't get along
with other ferrets. We would pick up one of the ferrets and let the
kids meet them and touch them and answer any questions they
might have. JJ was resting up for his turn, which came soon enough,
after an hour or so, the ferretwise guys got tired, so Dino put them
in to nap and JJ got to come out.

He really liked the playpen and all the stuff that was in there to look
at and play with. He even used the litter box while he was there,
something he didn't do in his travel house, in there he just went
where ever he felt like. At one point on the trip in, he had his front
feet in the litter box, and was pooping on the floor beside it! He's an
independent ferret to the core. He liked to go into the little pup
tent that was there but never got to stay long because someone
would come by and want to meet him. He was such a good boy!
I was very proud of him, he put up with a lot that day and didn't
complain once! We met quite a few nice people and had a lot of
fun. We were there from 11am to 3pm, and afterwards, we
parked the ferrets and our stuff in a safe place and went to
eat. This gave JJ time to rest up so that on the way home he
could bounce off the walls of his travel house and generally
drive me nuts. Kept me alert though!

Spring cleaning at the "Fun House" and other things.

Well springtime means some cleaning up is going to get done around the
house, specifically the room where my little buddies spend their time. It
wouldn't be so bad if they could hit the litter box a little more accurately.
Tends to get smelly after a while, then one day a couple weeks ago, while
I was tending LizBeth, I noticed on the second floor of the kids condo,
that is what I call the group of Ozzie, Sasha, and the late LizBeth since
they are all relative youngsters, a curious big ball of something right at
the bottom of the ramp up to the 3rd floor. Closer inspection showed
it to be something like people find dropped from airliners, except NOT
frozen. Well this was pretty gross. someone was being very lazy. So,
I am going to have to take their home outside on a warm day and take
the power washer with some bleach to it. JJ isn't exactly mister clean
either. His mess is caused by slopping his morning soup all over
creation. For good measure I will probably do Lil's too, while I have
the power washer.

A few days ago, Maurice came by to implant melatonin chips in Lil and JJ,
and pick up some implants I had for his kids. Fortunately it all went
smoothly this time around, the last few times getting the implant
into Lil has been a problem because her hair is so thick the implant
would get caught in it and pop back out. This time we had good luck
and he got it in her first try.

Well, I will keep this one short, as I can think of nothing else. On
May 16th, JJ and I will be at the Boston Children's Museum with
the Ferretwise crew meeting and greeting all the kids that want
to stop by. We always have fun there. I think we will be there
between 10am and 2pm, Alicia will leave a comment if I am
wrong. Come by and say hi to the J-man, the handsomest
ferret boy around. He told me so! :-)

Fairwell Lizbeth

This past Monday April 30, 2009 at approximatelt 8 am one
of my charges, LizBeth, passed away, which made Monday
a pretty sad day for me. LizBeth was a ferret with an attitude.
She had teeth and new how to use them. I like to think she
held back for me because after a while living at my house,
she would let me give her nutrical on my fingertip without
taking a nip. She was my only ferret that had a warning label
on her file at the vets office. I was kinda proud of that for her.

A few weeks ago I had noticed she had lost a bunch of weight
even though she ate a lot, and she was having trouble with
her hind end. So we went off to see Dr G. He knows LizBeth
and was concerned she was so easy to do things too now,
that had never been the case before. So we took a blood
sample and sent it out, but that came back pretty normal. He
did an x-ray and it showed she had white stuff in her lungs,
so we decided to put her on a course of antibiotics cause he
thought it may be pneumonia. So we did that for a 14 day
course, but there was no change, and when x-rayed again
she looked the same. So he knocked her out and took a
sample to send off. It came back that it was a
pyogranulomatous inflammation. This could be caused by
a foreign body. There were no cancerous cells in the stuff
in her lungs, but it could be anywhere.  So the treatment we
decided on was to really hit it with a bunch of antibiotics.
Amoxicillin, marboflaxin, and metacam.

During this whole thing she never lost her appetite. She would
have her soup in the morning, and all the Totally Ferret treats
she could eat. But she was always tired. She would sit on my
lap in a sleep sack and watch tv with me, and eat treats. The
last morning, I got up as usual and made everyones soup.
LizBeth didn't want any. I put some on my finger and she
licked it off a couple of times. Then she bit me, just a nip.
So I let her be and wrapped her in a blanket in her bed.
I had a physical therapy appointment, so I went to that. When
I got back an hour later, she must have just gone. So I
wrapped her in a blanket, and said goodbye. Fairwell
LizBeth Ozzie, Sasha, and I will miss you.

Some Awesome JJ news and other things

Well, the last Saturday in January, which was also the last day in January,
JJ and I went for a checkup with Dr G, Just to see how the lymphoma was
doing. The appointment was for 8 am in the morning, ( I say it like that,
cuz for me to get up early enough to get dressed and wake up, and
assemble the ferret in his carrier to get there on time, not to mention
dispense morning soup all around, I have to get up WAY earlier than
I want to on a Saturday! Thus the double emphasis). To continue, we
got there in good style, even having enough time for me to get a DD
coffee. 8 am is like the first appointment slot, and we actually got there
10 minutes early, so we had to hang out and listen to the radio a bit.
We went inside and they put us in a room to await the doctor, I let JJ
out for some quality exploring time, a ferret can not go to a different
room and not check out every corner, and also go to the bathroom in
one or two. We played a bit too, by the time the doctor got there, JJ was
pretty wound up and ready to go. Some poking and prodding later, JJ was
declared in remarkably good shape for a senior citizen, and surprisingly
energetic! ( I failed to mention to him that I had wound JJ up, but that's
ok ). The tumor on his next was soft and a little smaller, his weight was
about the same as last time we were there, so all in all things look good,
JJ should be able to make the trip to the Children's Museum in May.

About 5 years ago, Alicia at ferretwise gave me an old kitten playhouse
to clean and fix up for my ferrets. I promptly brought it home and put it
in the basement with the well meaning intention of fixing it up right away.
Well, last week I finally got it done! I cleaned it up, put new rug in it, and
made a ramp so the kids could access the second floor. Better late than
never I guess. They love it of course, I put a big fleece blanket, one of
JJ's secret Santa gifts, thank you secret santa! You know who you are.
They spend alot of time in there. LizBeth likes it best. I can always find
her napping in there.

I will now digress from ferrets to a fun cat story. My almost 5 year old
mackeral stripe tabby cat, Igor, ( pronounced eye-gore ), had himself
a little adventure a couple of weekends ago. It was during a pretty cold
snap of weather, I think it was like 5 degrees out at the time. I had gone
down to the basement to put some wood on the fire, and he ran down
the stairs between my legs, it has to be between my legs otherwise he
won't almost trip me up. It's a game he plays. Igor is an indoor cat, too
many things around my house that would take him for a snack, coyotes,
fisher cats and the like. He is always a little curious about what is on the
other side of the door, but has never made a break for it. I went out and
got some wood, and came back in. Stoked up the wood stove and went
back upstairs for coffee. About a half hour later I went down to get
something and I heard him meowing. This is no big deal, he is a very
talkative kitty, but I couldn't find him. It almost sounded like he was in
the wall. I went back upstairs thinking he might have got into the
bathroom closet, no dice. I went back downstairs and could still hear
his muffled meow. I went to the door and opened it and looked out in
the direction I heard the meowing from. There was my little bundle of
joy sitting in the snow in the 5 dgree weather. I asked, "Did we learn a
lesson today?". I went out and he let me pick him up and bring him in.
He stayed away from the door for a few days after that.