We've all had a very interesting day, especially Poppy, our Norfolk Terrier.
Whilst I was on the phone this morning, Poppy was going mad round the side of the house, barking hysterically. Tony went and caught her and said she was trying to get something that was hiding behind the two plastic sheds, where it's too narrow for her to get in. Possibly a rat, we thought.
We went on down to the summer house with our lunch and found Poppy barking again down there. There was a ferret in the summer house, being chased round by Poppy. It ran out and round the back. Poppy didn't seem to know what to do with it, fortunately - she 's never killed a rat. Eventually we caught Poppy and the ferret ran back into the summer house. We shut the door on it, put P. indoors, and I prepared one of the old quail cages for the ferret.
Wearing gloves, I went in and picked it up, but it soon became evident that it was very tame. A little girl, with a tick on her foot, which Tony removed - a lot easier than on Poppy! Took some pics and put her in the cage, with water and some of Poppy's minced meat.
Had lunch, then I printed off some Found posters and set out to attach them to local lampposts. I went first up to the farm at the top of the road, half a mile away, because I knew that people there use to keep ferrets and it seems the sort of place where people might go ferreting. This house has a large and fierce dog that sometimes gets out and frightens me, let alone Poppy. A large lady eventually answered the door, said yes they did keep ferrets, but assured me it couldn't be theirs since I had said how tame and easy to handle it was. We went out to her garden to check, all the same. There were 2 more ferrets in quite a big cage, but she found that, sure enough, one female ferret was missing. I showed her the photo on my phone and she said "yes, that's Opal!" The escape was blamed on the teenage son, who was "supposed to be responsible for the ferrets' - although judging by the filthy state of the cage, and the unreported escape, he didn't take his responsibilities very seriously.
Anyway, I offered to drive her and her other son, who is 6 and couldn't be left alone, so when she had detached him from the TV (not easy, took some time, at increasing levels of volume) we all piled into the car and came home. Ferret was fast asleep on her lovely clean bed of Aubiose, having eaten some of her lovely fresh mince and drank some of her lovely clean water. The woman put her apparent tameness down to exhaustion and said she wasn't normally like that at all, in fact, rather fierce. Apparently she had got out before and killed their pet duck, (who was then fed to the ferrets for food, apparently.)
So I took them and Opal back home, very relieved not to have the ferret any more. I thought she was lovely and would have been happy to rehome her, but it would have meant Poppy couldn't go out in the garden without going berserk - as it was, she spent all afternoon looking hopefully up at the empty cage, or sniffing round the summer house, now redolent of ferret as well as the normal hedgehog smells from under the floor. It's a good thing that last year we had mended the hole in the summer house floor as otherwise the ferret would have gone down underneath and we'd never have got it back. It's also good that she crapped and peed on the part of the new floor which wasn't covered by the nice new carpet we have just laid in there. But I was sorry to have to return her to such poor conditions. I think the woman would probably have been happy for me to keep her, but as it was really not possible I didn't encourage the idea. She was so lovely and soft and pretty, I quite fell in love with her, but was prepared to believe she could be less easy to handle, - and the woman said she was also in season and was wondering who she might have met on her travels and with what result ....
Whilst I was on the phone this morning, Poppy was going mad round the side of the house, barking hysterically. Tony went and caught her and said she was trying to get something that was hiding behind the two plastic sheds, where it's too narrow for her to get in. Possibly a rat, we thought.
We went on down to the summer house with our lunch and found Poppy barking again down there. There was a ferret in the summer house, being chased round by Poppy. It ran out and round the back. Poppy didn't seem to know what to do with it, fortunately - she 's never killed a rat. Eventually we caught Poppy and the ferret ran back into the summer house. We shut the door on it, put P. indoors, and I prepared one of the old quail cages for the ferret.
Wearing gloves, I went in and picked it up, but it soon became evident that it was very tame. A little girl, with a tick on her foot, which Tony removed - a lot easier than on Poppy! Took some pics and put her in the cage, with water and some of Poppy's minced meat.
Had lunch, then I printed off some Found posters and set out to attach them to local lampposts. I went first up to the farm at the top of the road, half a mile away, because I knew that people there use to keep ferrets and it seems the sort of place where people might go ferreting. This house has a large and fierce dog that sometimes gets out and frightens me, let alone Poppy. A large lady eventually answered the door, said yes they did keep ferrets, but assured me it couldn't be theirs since I had said how tame and easy to handle it was. We went out to her garden to check, all the same. There were 2 more ferrets in quite a big cage, but she found that, sure enough, one female ferret was missing. I showed her the photo on my phone and she said "yes, that's Opal!" The escape was blamed on the teenage son, who was "supposed to be responsible for the ferrets' - although judging by the filthy state of the cage, and the unreported escape, he didn't take his responsibilities very seriously.
Anyway, I offered to drive her and her other son, who is 6 and couldn't be left alone, so when she had detached him from the TV (not easy, took some time, at increasing levels of volume) we all piled into the car and came home. Ferret was fast asleep on her lovely clean bed of Aubiose, having eaten some of her lovely fresh mince and drank some of her lovely clean water. The woman put her apparent tameness down to exhaustion and said she wasn't normally like that at all, in fact, rather fierce. Apparently she had got out before and killed their pet duck, (who was then fed to the ferrets for food, apparently.)
So I took them and Opal back home, very relieved not to have the ferret any more. I thought she was lovely and would have been happy to rehome her, but it would have meant Poppy couldn't go out in the garden without going berserk - as it was, she spent all afternoon looking hopefully up at the empty cage, or sniffing round the summer house, now redolent of ferret as well as the normal hedgehog smells from under the floor. It's a good thing that last year we had mended the hole in the summer house floor as otherwise the ferret would have gone down underneath and we'd never have got it back. It's also good that she crapped and peed on the part of the new floor which wasn't covered by the nice new carpet we have just laid in there. But I was sorry to have to return her to such poor conditions. I think the woman would probably have been happy for me to keep her, but as it was really not possible I didn't encourage the idea. She was so lovely and soft and pretty, I quite fell in love with her, but was prepared to believe she could be less easy to handle, - and the woman said she was also in season and was wondering who she might have met on her travels and with what result ....
