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Duncan Munchkin
Everyone, this is Duncan. Duncan, this is everyone.
We were partial to the name Magnus, but given his diminutive size it seemed kind of silly. Duncan seems appropriate since his transition from drinking water out of a bottle to out of a bowl has involved a lot of head dunking. At any rate, we've been yelling his name at him since the moment he came through the door so it's far too late now. I love his huge nose, but his ears are equally enormous, making him the most ratlike ferret we've ever owned (a distinction that might be splitting hairs to ferret haters).
Yes, we swore we were only taking rescue ferrets from now on, but Tery's rationale is little Duncan is a rescue ferret in the making. The pet shop owner told Tery he's been in the store a month and not a single customer has looked at him. Whole litters of baby ferrets have come and gone, but he remained. "People just don't like albinos" she said. Talk about playing all the right heartstrings.
So home with us he came. After a month in a cage designed for one ferret but housing three (when we saw him), he's two steps away from feral, despite the store's insistence that he "plays nice." Nice is apparently a subjective term -- I've been bitten once on my chin, twice on my nose, countless times on my fingers and toes. We're breaking him slowly, but as of this writing he's still too wild for us to even give him a bath. However, he uses the litter box 9 times out of 10, so that's a check in the plus category.
Yes, I said no more baby ferrets. Tery thought getting a younger boy meant having an extra year in his tragically short lifespan; I reminded her that that year was usually spent training him and trying to keep the other animals safe from him. He's quite rough with Frances Sofia, but I can't tell if her growly cries are signs of actual pain or just her being a whiny baby. I suspect it's the latter, since she certainly could escape him very easily if she wanted to. Alsatia of course has always been the least tolerant of mustelid interaction. This morning he took on Gideon. Itty Bitty GiddyGiddy was at a disadvantage initially, accustomed to his lover Xandir who usually got exhausted just as quickly as he does. Then I went in to break them up and discovered Duncan being dragged around by his head. If you look closely in the photo, that's Giddy's butt to the left so I assume they've worked it out.
This is what I love about ferrets. There's none of the posturing, hissing and growling that strange cats go through, or barking and lunging of dogs. Any strange ferrets put together are usually playing within a few minutes. It's like they're all brothers already by mute acknowledgement.
He's learned to shy away from my feet, but Tery's are still fair game. She blames this on all the extra hours she's had to work until she can fill the full-time overnight position. I said when we take her to the ER to reattach a toe we can forward the bill along to her lazy, ungrateful employees.
Anyway, we have every confidence that once we've
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You know, I should send you my ping-pong ball gun. My ferrets loved it and it's just collecting dust now.
Frances Sofia is just being a baby. I've never known a cat, even a ferret loving cat, who will stick around if things were too out of hand.
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I think she is too. We like how it's giving her some exercise though. (Tery thinks she's getting fat. I think she's just fluffy)
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I've never had a ferret. Hoover raves about their merits every time we see one in a pet store, though. Maybe someday!
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