i think i forgot
to tell you guys... when we took nora to the vet for her once-over, i asked sue about rinky and tinker and she told me that rinky had passed away...
but that tinker had made good friends with another ferret and was doing good.
October 11, 2007
July 23, 2007
feeling chatty today
i guess it's cuz the only thing i can do is sit in the chair and get up to stretch every 10 minutes.
the ferrets have been at their new home for 2 weeks as of today... and i miss them. but with all the house stuff, they would have been stuck in their cage for days at a time, only seeing me to force tinker to take medicine. i'd probably have become someone they hated after a short while. i hope they're doing well...
June 29, 2007
thank goodness
a huge weight has been lifted. the lady at the vet is more than willing to take rinky and tinker. she's a ferret owner, and understands their health problems, and she will take care of them. i was so relieved to hear her voice message saying she'd take them.
*phew*
June 4, 2007
don't think me a monster
kurt and i have decided not to move rinky and tinker to the new house, so... i left a message for at the vet asking if they know of anyone willing to adopt two oldish, kinda sickly ferrets.
... i feel kinda bad, irresponsible...
UPDATE!: sue, at the vet, said she'd take the ferrets. i can't wait to tell kurty.
May 15, 2007
always a good read
Violent Acres ｻ Archives ｻ Real Estate Pet Peeves
she's a hoot!
but, she doesn't seem to know that ferrets are all de-scented at the time of neutering or spaying.
they still retain their own special odor; and when multiplied by 6, they most certainly do violate any 'no pets' clause.
May 12, 2007
:/
tinker had a seizure this morning. god that was scary. so off to healthy pet vet we went... they gave him a hardcore shot of some crazy steroid and he was immediately alert. he also gave them a gift of tar-poop, indicating stomach ulcers; probably caused by the stress of everything going on.
so i'm making a mush out of his food and we'll be starting a new routine. sucralfate 20 minutes before eating; then a mush cube warmed up and if he doesn't eat that, then force feed with syringe. luckily, ferretone is not out of the diet cuz that's his favorite treat.
so... 7am and 7pm, he gets prednisolone; and until the pancreatic tumors get bigger, this will be the norm. :/
the woman at the vet has a ton of ferrets herself, four of which are insulinoma and she has been maintaining their health for three years. omg.
what a mess.
May 9, 2007
we're back home
this is after playing hardcore for 30 minutes. he didn't eat anything when we got home, but he did go directly into the cage to poo and then drink a bunch of water.
we'll need to go to our regular vet soon to get a blood glucose checkup. i'm just glad to have him home.
what a long day
probably more-so for tinkerbell. when i dropped him off 24 hours ago, his blood sugar count was 35. mean is 110. at 4pm, it had gone up slightly and the dr was pleased so they started to wean him off the glucose. by 9pm it had dropped to 17. he stayed overnight with the diagnosis of insulinoma. basically, the result of an adrenalectomy is a reduced hormone which is no longer present to mask the hypoglycemia. so, long story short, he gets daily prednizone until he doesn't want to any more.
the bill ain't nothing to sneeze at either.
May 8, 2007
ugh
so tinker isn't eating and he's super dehydrated and at the emergency vet with an iv in his leg.
he peed on me when they took his temperature (guess where from?).
i'm in the wrong business. i won't even tell you how much this is going to cost.
December 5, 2006
i've decided
not to find the ferrets a new home. tinker's hair is starting to grow back and he looks so cute and happy and i don't want to give them away.
so there.
November 26, 2006
hm
i guess you can't sell animals (or animal parts—yuck!) on craigslist.
November 24, 2006
so...
i think i'm gunna have to find a new home for the ferrets. this sounds terrible, i'm sure, but we've been looking for a house and comparing the square footage we have here and what we can afford in a home, there isn't going to be enough space for them to have their own bedroom. so i'm working up something to post to craigslist but i might have more luck putting up a sign at a pet store.
October 15, 2006
status report
tinker's eating better over the last 24 hours. he seems to be enjoying the pampering and is taking to the syringe alot better than on friday. the stitches look great, but he's bruised from all the stuff moving around and removal of the gland.
he looks kinda funny right now because the adrenal problems make a ferret lose their hair and then they had to shave a bunch on his underside to do the surgery.
time for another feeding...
October 13, 2006
tinkerbell
he's doing ok... he's way groggy and has been asleep for almost all of the 4 hours he's been home. i had to wake him up to force-feed him 2ccs of chicken baby food. he's supposed to have 15-20ccs every 2-4 hours but i can't bring myself to hurt him to get him to eat :( i'm gunna try again in another hour or so..
rinky is very interested in why his brother gets to be outside the cage for so long :)
October 2, 2006
ferts
i haven't rapped about the ferrets much since we got jones. reason being, we haven't really had time to hang out with them.
this will change very soon. tinker needs to have adrenal gland surgery and i'll have to feed him wet stuff for a day or two every couple of hours. imagine me, in the baby aisle at woodman's, trying to decipher all those little jars of baby food just to find chicken. only chicken. they have mac and cheese, which looks really gross cuz it's the same color as the pears.
anyhoo, i'm using up some more vacation time on the day of the surgery, so i'll be home to take care of my stinkertinker.
August 19, 2006
ferts
i haven't rapped about the ferrets in a long time.. see, since we got jones, and they have an a/c in the bedroom; we haven't been very good ferret owners. :/ we don't play with them as much as we should.
May 17, 2006
remittance
i used to take bob and zona* to oregon to the vet because they specialized in ferrets.. and i used to live in oregon. they were a good vet, but after zona died, and the little scheisse's got bob sick, we started going to a vet that's much closer; and cheaper. on or around the last visit to oregon, i picked up a heartgard for mom & geo's (now deceased dog) callie.
fast forward ~4 years to yesterday. in the mail. a bill from oregon vet saying callie had a visit on 04/05/06 and i owe them $32.10. imagine my surprise. so i called them this morning and explained that i hadn't had any pets visit their clinic for about 4 years, and callie has been dead for about 3. the girl asked me for a number where i could be reached. i told her i wouldn't be able to help with anything because the bill doesn't belong to me. she seemed hesitant. i'm willing to wager $10 that i get another bill in a month; with their generous 1.5% late charge added.
*bob and zona were my first pair of ferrets. they were the cutest things ever and they pooped everywhere. zona died under the knife, and bob came down with ece after we got rinky and tinker—any ferret owner knows about ece and how yuckyterrible it is. i won't go into it.
September 23, 2005
the boys
managed wonderfully. rinky's bump isn't a cyst, but a hematoma that the dr. thought would either go away or get worse. the latter would involve surgery. :/
oh, guess what. they also have ear mites; noticing which is not as easy in ferrets as in cats, say. so i get to treat them tomorrow, at the same time washing all their bedding (and mine). ugh.
the absence of these mites will make them itch way less and the hair on their tails will not be as thin. so, i guess they get an a- overall.
September 19, 2005
[sigh]
in april of '02, i wasn't a blogger. i know, hard to believe. anyhow, in april of '02, had i been blogging, i would have inundated you with musings about my first two ferrets, bob and zona. both had issues with cysts popping (pardon) up in strange places. bob survived her* surgery, whereas zona did not. after zona passed, i quickly (stupidly) thought bob needed playmates. ferrets don't really "play" when they're 6, that's practically 80. but, being hardheaded, i made kurt come rescue two kits from petworld warehouse (just the sound of it's name is institutional). so we came home with rinky and tinker. they immediately gave bob e.c.e. (to summarize, it's a virus that inflames the intestinal lining making it impossible to digest food. it also creates sores in the mouth that, in turn, make it very hard for them to eat. so i had to syringe feed her every 3 hours for a week before deciding that neither of us were getting any better at it).
i digress. the two cute little boys that you see up there are going in for an overdue (by about a year) checkup and rinky has one of those cysts. needless to say, i'm nervous. thanks for listening.
*bob's first ownee didn't know how to tell the difference, so after the ownee was schooled, he addended bob's name as "roberta".
June 16, 2005
as seen on tv, part deux
last month, i blogged about buying something* from a tv ad. someone has recently commented asking for thoughts on the product:
I see that you purchased (that stuff)*, and I am curious how well it works. Could you share any thoughts you might have on the product?
Thank you, David
david, i have to be honest. i haven't used it yet. the shipper was backordered for ~3 weeks, and when i finally got it, the novelty was worn. and i had just power-cleaned the ferret room; so it didn't need more help. i promise, though, that i will use it this weekend and give a full report; cuz the room needs it.
*edit: i was getting some weird referrals because of the name of this product, so i had to change it.
January 22, 2005
lol!
well, the kids have never seen snow, so we decided to take them out. it didn't last very long.
December 25, 2004
aww
yesterday, the ferrets surprised me with their cuteness by sleeping behind the door:
April 21, 2003
You know how...
male dogs sometimes get in a mood where they want to try something interesting on your leg? Well, apparently male ferrets do it, too, only to their cagemate instead of your leg. It's quite amusing.
February 15, 2003
chilly
I could, very happily, live in a log cabin and never go outside. I think this is a testament to just how easily amused I can be. Provided I still have everything that I do now at my disposal. The ferrets, this morning, are on my nerves though. They stand at the door to their (my) room, scratching. When I go in the room and sit down to play, they run all around, everywhere but near me. What do they want!? Gah. They've just now been placed in their cage for a time-out.
October 7, 2002
first timer!
So. It's Monday. It was a cold one! I woke up at 6 and knew that if I went back to bed, there would be hell to pay once my alarm went off as scheduled. Yesterday, Rinky decided he'd give a go at jumping, and pulling himself over the "gate" that keeps them in my bedroom. We're going to have to get a taller gate. I swear, he's part monkey.