3 posts tagged “small pets”

Between Vinnie and Sylvie (Lee decided her name should be spelled with a "W," and I'm OK with that), our house is full of intrepid explorers. Nothing is sacred. My underwear could end up anyplace.

When you are faced with all that furball energy and curiousity, the only thing to do is to try to use it to your advantage. The ferret owners of the old days used to use them to catch mice and rats. They'd carry them around in their pants legs and peddle their services at nearby farms. They were the first exterminators.

Me, I'm far too squeamish to market Vin's services as a mouser. But a weasel has to earn his keep. So I decided to put his "ferreting" skills to the test and send him on Mission Impossible:  Figure out where all the damn socks go and why they never make it out of the laundry in pairs.

He gave it his best shot, really:

VIn The Intrepid Explorer

Anybody in there?

Adventure Weasel

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But eventually, we had to concede that even Vin Weasel, Ace Detective, was no match for the ever-elusive Sock Thief.

Vin Does Laundry

Better luck next time, Vin.

Editor's Note:  The above is pure fiction. Sure, Vin explored the dryer. But he didn't give a weasel's butt about my missing socks. In fact, if he'd found them, he probably would have just hidden them better, because that's what weasels do. His real job is simply to be cute.

The VInster

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Happy Weekending!

Although I didn't have a ferret of my own until my mid-20's, I caught ferret fever when I was just a kid. I would spend a few weeks each summer with my great-grandmother in West Virginia, and her neighbors had two of them.

The first time I saw a ferret, the neighbor lady was walking him up my grandma's driveway on a harness leash. The ferret trotted along almost like a puppy, stopping to weasel war dance now and then on the way. I fell in love. So when I was all grown up and had weasels of my very own, of course I wanted to try the leash thing. I think that over the years I attempted to walk three or four different weasels. The result always went something like this:

- weasel looks at me like I'm insane.

- weasel won't move other than to try to wiggle out of the harness

- weasel eventually gets sick of wiggling, rolls over and flops with his belly in the air, playing dead until I give up and remove the offending harness.

So I gave up, thinking there was something wrong with my weasel skills. After all, every now and then I'd see a couple walking their ferret across the campus where I work. THAT weasel bounced along quite happily, so it must be me.

Then my most recent next-door neighbors moved in, the ones who currently have six ferrets. They've been weasel people for decades, and admitted without shame that they've never been successful in taking a ferret for a stroll. Like mine, their ferrets prefer playing dead. And taking a weasel for a drag just isn't the point of the exercise.

So I still couldn't walk a weasel, but I felt a little better.

Flash forward to now. After the loss of Ginny and Cleo, Lee and I decided that we aren't getting any more ferrets for a while. It's the right decision, but it leaves the Vinster without in-house weasely companionship. He can visit with the neighbor's ferrets, but we still feel like we have to do more than ever to keep him entertained and content. So we bought a leash and decided to try the whole weasel-walking thing again.

Our first attempt was Wednesday night. I got the harness on Vin with minimal struggle and took him out into the yard. Lee was already there talking to the neighbors, who cracked up at mine and The Vinster's arrival. When I put him down, they leaned over the fence and began to count.

"One ... Two ... Three ... over onto his back he goes!"

But he didn't. He bounced and clucked and weazed all over the front yard.

I can't say I was "walking" him, exactly. It was more like I was following him as he bounded about. If I had tried to get him to go in any particular direction, I think we may have gone into "flop" mode. But he moved. And he got to explore the yard, something he'd never get to do without a leash. Unlike other pets, ferrets aren't smart enough to come home. And they're too fast to guarantee that you'll be able to catch them if they roam free.

I haven't seen the Vinster so animated and happy in a while. So we'll stick with this, even if we never get to the point of actually "walking him." It makes him happy.

And I finally have a ferret who doesn't play dead on a leash.

As if I already don't spend enough time surrounded by weasels, I've created a new group for ferret lovers - http://ferrets.groups.vox.com/ . Just in case there are any other ferret owners or weasel lovers out there, I thought it would be fun to have a place to share ferret stories, tips on ferret care, and other ferret-related stuff. And of course, like most ferret owners I always love looking at other people's cute weasel pictures, so I'm hoping people will share photos as well!

Here are two of the weasels who have brightened my world:

Weasels

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I can't be the only person on Vox who shares my home with weasels, can I?