Tonight, Suz went to the cage, and Picnic was fast asleep by the food bowl... only he was not asleep, he had decided to go and play at the Bridge
Picnic was one of the kits we accidentally adopted last year, and for some reason, right from the early days, we knew he was going to stay here (well, I knew, because Suz told me!). He was a cheeky trouble maker from even before his eyes were open. He was only 1 year 1 month, and 16 days old, and way to young and full of energy to leave us so soon, so we are both sitting here in shock and disbelief.
We have 4 identical beenies boys here, Picnic, his brother Reject, his dad, Toby, and Snicker. Some of you may have read, we were worried about his weight, and took him to the vets, but were not actually sure which ferret it was to start with, and while we were pretty sure it was Picnic, we had to wait until we could observe them all playing, and see their mannerisms, to work out if we were correct. At the vets, he was diagnosed as having severe fluid retention and a bad heart murmur. He was put on diuretics, and heart meds, which he responded too very quickly.
In order to make sure we could easily and safely identify him at medicine time, we used a marker pen to put a black splodge on his head. Luckily, once on the medicine, he turned back into the kit he was, playing and going mental at every opportunity, and we started to call him smudge, or stripe (as in the evil gremlin) as often as we called him Picnic.
Each morning, he would be waiting at the bars for his tablet, and after having it, he would spend an hour playing with his sister Flyte, and his mum and aunty Snowy, who loved ambushing him in the garden, 3 onto 1 wrestling. When they were all finished play fighting, they could be found cuddling him to sleep. Later in the morning, the girls would go off to bed, and his group would come out to play. The 4 beenies would spend ages in the garden just rough and tumbling, before he would eventually put himself back to bed in his cage. It was lovely to see that he always had someone for company when he went to bed, and he seemed to be friends with everyone, old and young. Often he would come back out again later in the afternoon, and if I was in the living room, would make a point of annoying me until I picked him up for a small cuddle (I am so glad he did now).
In the evening, at the second tablet time, he would again be at the bars, waiting for us to take him out for his medicine, and then have another play with the girls, while I got their chicken and soup ready, where he would beg to go back in his cage, and enjoy his bedtime snack.
After my last trip with him to the vets, we knew we probably did not have a lot of time with him, although we did think it would be a fair bit longer than we got. We decided we would do our best to make him feel special for as long as he had left, and I can honestly say, he had a ball of a time, and seemed to really appreciate the extra effort we put in, even breaking the non-face safe rule, to give Suz a kiss one night. We made a point of taking him out a few times at the Great Dorset Steam Fair, and he loved helping me to rummage in the boxes of Junk, and thought Suz's special hot chocolate, with cream, flake and marshmallows was just divine, and should have been on every ferrets natural food list.
He was fine today, up as usual at the bars for his medication this morning, had a great play time as usual, and was even fine when I checked on them, to put them all to bed at 5:30 tonight, so I can honestly say, I was totally shocked to see him dead at 8pm, with no warning.
Sweet Dreams Picnic, it was a vary short life, but I think you really lived it to the full, and definitely gave it everything you had, right up the the very end. Knock them out at the Bridge, the world is a poorer place without you, but the bridge will have no idea what has hit it.
