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We adopted Pete and Sissy (formerly Repeat) last Winter. Last Summer, Sis decided to go on a little adventure. We were cleaning the cage and had the fuzzies out playing in our bedroom. We had inadvertently left a window cracked open. When we went back to the bedroom to play with them, Sis was nowhere to be found. We searched and searched, inside and out for hours. We didn’t see any sign of her, even thought she had really fallen out the window! This happened on a Thursday evening. Each day we spent most of our time looking for her. We called the Shelter and asked what their instincts would be in that situation. The guilt was overwhelming. We were told if she didn’t turn up after about 4 days that it wasn’t likely we would see her again. Come Monday we had pretty much resigned ourselves to the fact that she was gone. We kept looking, but started mourning her as well.
Tuesday afternoon as I was driving home I saw a sign a block away from our house that said “Found Ferret”. I pulled out my cell phone and dialed frantically. “I lost a ferret!” Amazingly enough, she had survived her little ordeal! It turns out she was only three houses away. She had run through some woods and hidden under their barbecue. It took them a while to lure her out from under there. She was covered in sap; they had to cut patches of fur off her (she looked a little worse for wear). The people who found her were animal lovers and had most of the supplies needed to take care of a lost animal on-hand. They had washed her, fed and watered her and took good care of her. They had a baby kangaroo at their house (among other animals) and tried to introduce the two. Sis bit the kangaroo so they had to keep them separate. When life had settled down a bit, they posted signs around the neighborhood. The signs had only been up for about an hour when I called.
The best part of the story was reuniting her and Pete. I have never seen anything so touching. Pete would not leave her side for a good hour. They ran (as shadows), played and clucked more than I’ve ever heard. We laughed, cried a bit, and just watched them interact. Pete was her shadow and would not let her out of his sight for days. He had been so sad while she was gone. We had tried to give him extra attention and playtime but he just didn’t want any of it. Now that they were together again we had two happy fuzzies and a big happy family!