I have wonderful valentine news for you all about my autistic son Sean. As I wrote before, Sean, my 8 year old has only grown more bonded to our two deaf ferrets Ping and Pong. He has been so responsible, and loving. His socialness with the fuzzies has been spontanious and natural, which is such a step with his autism. We promised him something spectacular after the Christmas episode with Sean having that fever, and the ferrets helping him. We promised him that if he continued on such a great path that we would get him his own ferret.

So for the past 6 weeks or so, we have watched our son grow even more responsible and blossom. We right away had begun looking and planning on how or where we would get our next baby. We had planned all along to get a very well bred ferret with some foreign lines in it. I have had a variety of ferrets over my life time and I wanted a well bred one for a change, and I wanted one that would be big and last a long time. Something very unexpected happened.

Before ordering a kit, I checked into shelters. I have never been to one before. Although I had made the conscious decision to go to shelters from here on in... I was set on a well bred kit. Because of my decision, we decided to check shelters first. I want to tell you of my experience.

I had already decided on two well known shelters that were within a few hours driving distance. I have to tell you when I called this one shelter I was greeted by this sweet man. He told me all about the shelter and mostly I told him about me and my situation. I wanted him to know I had a lot of love to offer, experiece, and a good home. When it came down to me asking details over specific ferrets for adoption, he laughed and said I had to speak to "the expert". A cheery voice greeted me, and it was his wife. I told her about us and asked many questions. I asked all about their home, the shelter history, and just ferret talk to see if I liked how they raise their angels. Well I was so impressed. They had 35 ferrets. She was able to off hand pick one that fit our needs perfectly. I wanted an adult because I didn't want to go through the kit stuff so much. Sean wanted a baby kit. Sean wanted a boy. I always wanted a big ferret, especially a bulldog kinda build. I wanted a hearing ferret as I miss ferret dooking and all. Sean wanted a cuddley ferret. If he had a color to choose from, he liked choclate ones. Ok... so here is what she came up with. A 3 month old boy, that was huge, fat, almost bulldog build, sable..but choclatey hue, hearing/exemely vocal (goody), gets along with other ferrets, and is a lap ferret already. We had no money. No good car, but this just felt too right.

We had friends help, and they actually lent us a new bonneville to drive there, and got us some money for the trip and all. These sweet people at the shelter had plans, but they curtailed them just for us. It was a really happy ride. Even if we did not end up adopting I was very excited to see lots of ferrets. I expected to see lots of sad cases as they told me on the phone all about the abuse stories, and the special needs, and adrenal cases, etc.. But that is not what I found.

We pulled up to a nice little home and on the bottom of the door was a sign to watch out for ferrets. As we walked in we were greeted by a very excited, bald adrenal girl. My oldest son picked her up right away and sat with her and loved. In these peoples living room were huge ferret homes filled up with hammys, toys, food, and ....ferrets. Oh we were intoduced to almost everyone. And the man kept putting these big sweet ole boys in my arms.

I saw ferrets of every color, and pattern there is almost. They were of all sizes, ages, temperments, etc.. I couldn't choose! It's a good thing the shelter people matched us.. to give us a start. We stayed all afternoon and talked ferrets, and I got to play with the ferrets all I wanted. Their ferrets had the softest fur I ever felt. And many of the ferrets licked my face all over.

These lovely people I noticed are running this shelter on faith pretty much. Neighbors contribute newpapers, etc.. The cages were gorgious, the food the best you could get. They had all the love and toys in the world, but they need more hammys as they wear. I noticed its impossible to keep up with that many ferret poopies. If I lived there and had no asthma I think what I would really like to do is contribute man power and help with the chores, ferret care, etc..

I didn't want to leave and wished I could take home more babies. I will be referring people and hopefully going back to at least visit. This was one of the neatest experiences I ever had.

Wolfy
WOLFYSLUV@AOL.COM

I would like to give eternal thanks to the Glasgows at the

Ferret Education & Rescue of TN
745 Donna Dr
Lenoir City, TN 37771
(423) 988-4431

glasgoww@usit.net

Without them none of this would have been possible.

Specifically
www.beachnet.com/~wizzle/love/heartsintro.htm

Send email to wizzle@cci-internet.com

ferretlover97@yahoo.com

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