Tunnels and weasels
The whole family likes the ferrets. My husband, Leon, still gets a goofy look on his face when he plays with the ferrets. He laughed for a spell when I lost my wallet and he found it in the ferrets’ stash. He doesn’t seem to mind that they are de-stuffing our leather couch, and he doesn’t seem to notice the weasel smell. Both children love the ferrets. Quinn likes Mimzy the best, and Anna likes Simon the best. Being young children, they inadvertently torture the boys by holding them and not letting the ferrets ferret, but they’re learning.
Since the kids do play hard with the ferrets during the day, I frequently feel obliged to let the boys out after the kids have gone to bed. That way, the ferrets can ferret and Leon and I can be amused watching ferret antics. Mimzy, who is a pound lighter than Simon, likes to jump on Simon’s back and try to pin him. They both like to chase each other around the house, and they both like to crawl up pant legs. (Why does a wet dog nose bother my husband, but weasels crawling up his pants don’t? It’s one of life’s great mysteries.)
I don’t recommend ferrets for all households. Ferrets are ferrets and they ferret. They tip over anything they can, including trash cans and beverage glasses. They “steal” things, like my wallet, and put them in their stash. They “do business” in corners, so you either have to have litter boxes all over, or you have to only let them out for an hour at a time after you’ve witnessed a successful litter box operation. Mostly, ferrets like tunnels. A friend of mine told me ferrets were used to hunt rats in sewer tunnels in England once. Wikipedia says that they were used by the Romans to hunt rabbits. They can get into holes you wouldn’t believe. My husband refers to them as two-dimensional creatures.
Simon and Mimzy, our boys, have found ways to crawl into our kitchen cabinets. We had to try about four different instances of ferret proofing to keep them out of the upstairs. We are still working on proofing the stairs to keep them from going downstairs. The current mechanism works, if you remember to block the cat’s door to the basement AND remember that ferrets are two dimensional critters.
Two nights ago, I let the ferrets out after the kids had gone to bed. I failed to remember the cardinal rule and left about an inch of clearance by the cat’s door to the basement. After an hour of playtime, we put Mimzy back in his cage. Simon, on the other hand, we could not find. It was late, and Leon wanted to go to bed. I told him we couldn’t go to bed until all weasels were accounted for and safely tucked away in their cage. We searched.
I pulled apart the coat closet. We tipped over the couches. We searched the nooks and crannies, and eventually Leon saw the cat door. He went into the basement, and he heard Simon scratching.
We have two sump pumps in our basement, and Simon had managed to get into the sump pump pipes. Leon came and got me. He wasn’t able to get Simon out, but he did see him. I came down with him, and we spent a half hour trying to get our boy back. At one point, I told Leon to get the jigsaw and I covered my hand in yummy ferret vitamins. Leon sawed on one of the sump pump pipes, very close to my hand, while I kept my hand by Simon so he could lick ferret vitamins.
We “rescued” Simon. We were covered in basement gunk, and we thought Simon had to be traumatized. Traumatized or not, midnight or not, Simon earned a bath. I think the bath was scarier for him than being stuck all alone in sump pump piping for an hour.
As we put Simon to bed, we both agreed that we had to ferret proof the sump pumps, because while Simon had just scared us, he clearly had fun. Basement plumbing pipes are just too fun a playground for stinky weasels.
Labels: animals, danger, ferrets, hiding, pets, tunnels, weasels
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