Our ferret friends Phoebe and Sara joined our family right after my husband and I married. We adopted them from a ferret rescue, and moved out of state shortly after. They were so cute and entertaining. Sara became aggressive about a month or two after we got her. When I contacted Ferret Rescue about our concern that she may be going into heat early, we were told it was not likely and that ferrets tend to play rough. Sara was down right vicious though!
Afraid she’d harm her sister we brought her to our small animal shelter which sent her to the local Ferret Rescue. Many months went by and I came across the number for the facility where I believe Sara was brought to. Curious as to how she was doing, I called. I was told she was adopted and living with her new owner in Japan who worked for a ferret magazine. Apparently Sara was in heat at a young age and had been spayed as a result.
Phoebe and we spent a lot of fun time together going for walks, watching her get into mischief. We found out she was deaf and she learned a couple signs. Her happy-honking noise started to diminish over time. We started noticing, though she was eating, she was loosing weight and her stools were tarry looking. Our vet did stool cultures and we tweaked her diet some to an easier to digest one. Once Phoebe started losing hair on her back, I did some internet searching and learned about adrenal disease. I took her to the animal emergency room as the clinic was closed and they put her on a medicine after noting blood in her stools.
The next day I contacted the vet demanding to see someone who knew about ferrets. The receptionist assured me that they knew about them, but obviously, Phoebe’s condition was over looked or misdiagnosed. I found a ferret specialist in the area. He put Phoebe on a duck and rice diet in addition to keeping her on medication. He did not believe she had adrenal disease, though I can’t remember why. We had her on a special diet and the medication for close to a year. Phoebe became weaker and skinnier.
Please check out Part 2 of this story for the conclusion.
( Melissa is a Families.com Christian Blogger. Read her blogs at: http://members.families.com/mj7/blog )