witch, you're fucking brave. Ferrets are worse than toddlers. Damn things need ridlin.
Do you mean ritalin, the drug to slow kids down? Yeah ferrets are hard out all right. Two speeds, stop and full on! She certainly wasn't a cuddly pet. My two cats, each at least twice QT's size, were terrified of her.
Kindred spirit definitely. I used to think of her and a few minutes later, she'd arrive from wherever she'd been in the house. When I had breast cancer QT used to keep me amused for hours, really hard to be self-pitying when you're towel surfing a ferret round the house.
I've had rats too. When I was young, 19 or so, I got a couple of rats from the Uni after the psych students had finished with them for the year. (The rats couldn't be used for a second year of students 'cos they'd already done all the experiments of course). James Cagney and his moll. They were cool too. I named James after a cartoon I saw, one rat holding a gun on another rat muttering, 'You Cagney, you dirty Cagney you'. (This will only make sense to readers over a certain age).
James the rat used to like a toke, he'd sit on my shoulder and pat my cheek so I'd blow the smoke past his nose and he'd sniff. Had another rat when we first got the ferret, she'd just hang on his cage drooling, gave him conniptions so we had to find the rat a new home.
When I was a child - about 11 - we had an opposum. It was rescued from it's mother's pouch after she was killed. My mother hand reared it. I tried the same about three weeks ago for an orphaned possum, but unfortunately little TooSoon didn't make it. The b/f's idiot sister tried cutting it's nails and it got a blood infection. Possums are awesome too, can be housetrained and very smart and friendly. My father built a cage around a small tree so it could also live outdoors. It used to sit on our shoulders and clean our ears. Amazing prehensile tails, almost like a fifth limb.
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