crankylex | (no subject)

A group thank-you to everyone who sent well wishes to me on Monday.

Most of you know this, but for those who don't, I am owned by three cats and ~~four~~ three ferrets.

Late Sunday night, I went in to check on the ferrets (they have their own bedroom) and I found Mullet, my oldest girl, lying dead on the bottom of her cage.

She was a rescue, and best guess at her age would put her at 7 to 7.5 years (average ferret life span is about 8 years). She also developed adrenal disease within the last year, which was being treated with Lupron.

She really surprised me, because she was this tiny scrawny looking thing, but she responded really well to the Lupron, so much so that I was actually contemplating the surgery to fix the adrenal problem.

I didn't expect her to go so soon. Especially all alone, on the cage floor. That's what upsets me the most. She died on the floor, next to the litter box. I have no idea what time she died. She was alive that morning when I checked on them, but I was elder-sitting my grandmother on Sunday, so I didn't get back until late that night, and by the time I did all the fiddly stuff I had to do in the house and checked on the weasels, she was gone.

She had more guts in that tiny little body than in animals ten times her size. She was infamous around these parts as "the ferret lip ring", from the time she decided it would be fun to bite through my lip and just dangle from it. She was also famous for waiting for the exact moment you were paying her the least amount of attention, and then, lick, lick, CHOMP.

Opti's all alone now, I've switched him into a smaller cage for the time being until I can work up the nerve to clean the bigger cage. I would love to just put him in with the others, but he's not a ferret-friendly ferret, so all he would do is bite them and make them miserable.

Of course, this brings to mind that both Opti and Libby are around Mullet's age, and I can't help but be paranoid about them now.