The Chubby Ferret

Polgara has crossed the rainbow bridge

pogle — Wed, 29 Jul 2020 23:39:47 +0000

I found her late yesterday morning, curled up under a blanket with her head poking out. That’s not really normal for her, she loved deep burrows and making me dig through all the blankets to find her. I think maybe she wanted a bit of the early dawn sunlight, at the end. She was around 7 and a half years old, the oldest in the business I’ve had. She had been sleeping a lot more lately, and not playing as much, but still had a healthy appetite, so it came as a most unwelcome surprise to find her gone. But she had a long ferret life, and many wonderful ferrets and people moved through it with her.

I know I’m fairly terrible at updating this lately. It’s mostly major ferret-life events these days. But I still take pictures, and we’re going to go back across Gara’s life and celebrate it with them. Some I’ve posted before, some I haven’t, but they’re all about my dear little affectionate sweetheart, and how much I’ll miss her.

She was about a year and a half old at this point, late in 2014. She and Millie really tussled over that gator. Both loved to hide away in it. And both were very grumpy when you opened it’s jaws and waved a camera around
About 6 months later, in early 2015. That’s a bulk pasta box. She was inside it digging at the back wall, and the camera flash seemed to really surprise her. I always laugh at this one, feels a bit like a ‘shocked’ meme
Ferret leftovers! Thanksgiving of 2015
Possibly the best picture of a ferret I’ve ever captured, during Thanksgiving of 2015. She held that pose for me until I was done.
She and Millie were occasionally spoiled. And not just by me! This absolute unit of a hammock is courtesy of my aunt and the cousins, during a Thanksgiving visit in 2016. Gara and Millie seal of approval!
I tried to get her to wrestle with my hand all the time. She instead always wanted tummy scratches and to give kisses.
Rudely awakened one afternoon in early 2017 when I got home from work. Still cheerful!
Apparently I smelled different, as she was quite interested in sniffing around.
Spring of 2017. She loved to beg for escape from her palatial play room
More begging to come out! This is shortly before traveling to see the cousins at Thanksgiving in 2017. This was after we’d lost Millie, and she was feeling lonely.
But soon thereafter we adopted DB into our family! This is early 2018. Notice the trend of her still wanting out? I think she’d have wanted out even if she had the whole apartment to roam.
Got home from work and found them cuddled together! Unfortunately, they moved before I could get camera into position. Well, DB moved. Gara was the epitome of comfort here.
A new toy appear! In early spring of 2018, the turtle hideaway joined in on the playtime fun. One of the few times I got her to play inside it and not just run all over it.
She wants out so badly here. Pity there’s not an open door the next level down…oh wait…
Woke her up for some of her meds post-dental surgery, in April of 2018. She might be slightly stoned here.
A syringe of carnivore care slurry. She’s not too keen on it, but this was right after her dental surgery in April 2018. She got hand fed and waited on hand and foot for almost 2 weeks!
I dared to remove the food bowl to wash it, while they slept. Came back to see this.
Summertime 2018 visit to the cousins. Cuddles!
Off to see our wonderful vet for a wellness check in fall of 2018. Their travel carrier is pretty nice. It always has at least one hammock, sometimes even two! But as usual Gara wants to be where she’s not allowed.
Out, damned fence! Out, I say! – Lady Polgara, fall 2018.
A couple days later. I got a lot of pictures of this sort during that time, saying hi to them both before leaving for work.
Wellness check with our vet again, early spring of 2019. Gara has her DB blanket and is quite content in the carrier for a change!
Late spring of 2019. I had been finding them sleeping in this kitten bed frequently, and embarked on a quest to get a picture of them before they woke up! (spoiler alert, I failed adorably)
Moments before disaster, in winter of 2019. Pretty sure DB is about to get tackled.
Christmas Day kisses, in 2019. You best believe she got treats! And new blankets to nest in (not pictured).
She pretty much teleported out of the bed. They were snuggled so cutely, as well! January, 2020
Better luck a few days later. Awake, but still cuddled!
She’s mid-motion here, in escaping. She generally could not sit still if I was trying to point that weird camera-thing at her, it seemed
Here we are in May 2020, with her in the middle of her patented lick-lick-chomp maneuver. My shins were her target of choice for that.
End of June, 2020. She wasn’t too energetic, but this was shortly after I extracted her from my PJ pants leg where she was chomping away
Later that same night. This is the last picture I have of her. She was spending more and more time sleeping, and while I still went and played with her I was in the moment and not using my camera. I regret not getting more in the last month, but that’s a regret I’d have even if I had a hundred recent photos.
Goodbye sweetheart. We had 7 happy years together, but it’s never enough. We’ll miss you.

Introducing Snickers!

pogle — Tue, 26 Dec 2017 00:25:04 +0000

So, I had planned on doing a nice big post with lots of videos and some pictures for the introduction. Unfortunately, I’ve been really sick and haven’t gotten nearly as far along on that process as I would have liked. So the couple videos and pictures I have will have to do.

Meet Snickers and her many aliases.

Here’s a couple videos I’ve managed to get, at the vet andÂ while introducing her to Polgara.

Millie has crossed the Rainbow Bridge

pogle — Fri, 08 Sep 2017 13:16:02 +0000

I’ve not posted at all this year…part of that has been forgetfulness, and part of it has been Millie being increasingly sick. Her weight crashed early this year, from her norm of 700g down to a mere 430g at the lowest. We went to the vet, and she got put on metronidazole. This helped for a time, bringing her stable weight back to 650g for a while.

Unfortunately, it didn’t last. Her weight crashed again, and we added prednisolone to the mix. She stabilized again for a time, only at 550g, but seemed happy. At least, happy when I wasn’t making her take the icky meds. So most of the day!

Earlier this week, a mere couple days in advance of her next vet visit for annual checkup and vaccines, her weight crashed again. And this morning, I woke up to give her the meds for the day, and she was all but gone. We rushed to the vet, with her wrapped in warm blankets to try and boost her body temperature, but there was nothing to be done but let her go. I’m really going to miss my little koalaferret.

Despite not posting pictures, I’ve still been taking them. And if she’s not been at her most photogenic this year, I still want to give her a fitting goodbye. So here’s Millie, everyone.

She loved her belly scratches.

She always wanted to go out and explore.

When we did go out, she sometimes got to stay at a fancy ferret hotel at my cousins’ place!

She loved, loved,Â loved her eggs. Both the ones our wonderful vet gave her so many years ago, and the ones my mom made for her more recently.

Playing with Gara in the Christmas present I got them.

Being woken up because dad wanted snuggles!

Lurking in her lair. A fuzzy alligator.

She sometimes ‘spilled’ when napping in there.

She still snuggled with me, even when I made her take icky meds.

And while it’s a bit blurry, she gave me kisses. She didn’t hold a grudge.

It’s blurry…but its the most recent picture I have that shows just what a sweetheart she was. She’d just rest her chin on me and that’s all it took.

Goodbye sweetie. Gara and I will miss you so much…

New Year’s Eve…from 2015

pogle — Sun, 01 Jan 2017 04:59:36 +0000

My friend Jeff came over for New Year’s Eve last year, and I had recorded a fairly long video of us playing with the ferrets. I noticed it was still marked a private on my Youtube channel, so I decided this year at the new year would be a good time to go ahead and … Continue reading

Midnight playtime

pogle — Thu, 29 Dec 2016 05:00:54 +0000

Gara and I both being awake really, really late. Add in a sometimes glitchy camera, and we’ve got a video!

New (relatively speaking) playroom setup

pogle — Sun, 25 Dec 2016 17:00:41 +0000

Yeah, so it’s ‘new’ as of May 2016, but finally putting the video here on the blog!

Saying hi in the morning

pogle — Sat, 24 Dec 2016 17:00:33 +0000

More of the girls trying to make me late for work!

An evening tussle

pogle — Fri, 23 Dec 2016 17:00:20 +0000

I realized I had uploaded several videos to the Youtube channel and never linked them here. So I’m going to try and correct that over the coming weeks.

There are some glitches in some of them, my old cell phone was becoming very temperamental.

Ferret Thanksgiving, 2016

pogle — Wed, 21 Dec 2016 15:50:01 +0000

Sorry, I don’t have a huge list of pictures and videos this year. I do have a couple videos I need to edit down, but my phone made a highlight reel on its own, which is both convenient and kind of creepy. So here it is!

Ferrets and the GoPro

pogle — Tue, 05 Apr 2016 16:32:31 +0000