Author Topic: Peanut  (Read 4827 times)

Offline lazy-ferret

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Peanut
« on: March 12, 2020, 12:09:18 AM »
70 days!!! That’s all it was, 70 very short days.

You arrived here from the rescue, full of teeth, and very bad mannered. You decided everyone was your enemy, shouting and poofing at anyone who came near regardless of whether human or ferret, and if the shouting and poofing did not work, you had a fair set of lungs, and a very sharp painful bite which you were not afraid to use.

Sherbet decided you were the worst, and set out to wind you up mercilessly. Bourneville, just ignored you. Topic decided you might be handy as someone to keep him warm when in bed, and poor Humbug could not believe his nose… he remembered that when young girls came along smelling like you, he had a duty to perform… only he was no longer sure what that was, since he had been neutered. He did try to get you alone a few times, but you made a point of telling him very loudly that you were not that sort of girl. We were all very weary of you, and decided to give you plenty of space and time. Trying to catch you to put you in a cage was a very hazardous past time.

We were struggling to find you a name, and I must admit, we did start to wonder if taking you on had been a mistake and perhaps we should give up, and return you to the rescue. The thing was, we could see you seemed to be trying, and somehow, your headstrong personality had started to worm it’s way in.



Over the next week or so, the boys all worked their magic on you, deciding you were quite cuddly in bed. Even Bourneville, decided you were OK, and would sleep between you and Sherbet, to stop you fighting, and ruining his sleep. We would look for you, and find you curled up between two other ferrets, looking like a little pea in a pod. But while you looked cute, we knew you were as hard as a nut… so a name was born… Peanut.

You took your time learning the house, it was like you set yourself little goals, leaning one room at a time, before moving on to the next. Then you found the garden and run and could not believe your luck. I think that was the point you decided we were not so bad and started to curtail the biting a bit. Once in the garden, you started to learn how to play with the other ferrets, and even got Humbug to dance and play with you, like he was a kit again. You loved the tubes in the run, and started sleeping in the ones right up in the roof. I had to get my laser thermometer, and shine it along the outside of the tube, until I could find the warm spot where you were sleeping, just so we could keep an eye on where you were over the course of the day.

You learnt so fast… you were coming to your name from very early on, even when you were right at the bottom of the garden, or sound asleep in the airing cupboard upstairs, I would call your name, and make a kissy sound, and you would come running. The routines were a piece of cake to you, never one to miss out on a treat when ever we walked past where they were kept, and you would sit there and stuff yourself to bursting point when you had your soup at night. You also discovered the morning ritual of giving Snicker and Topic their medicine, and would demand a bit of the convalescent food for yourself. I think that was when Sherbet decided you might be a good ally, as she would be there with you each morning so she could share a bowl with you. You also learnt amazingly quickly that first thing in the morning, I grabbed a handful of treats, and put them in my pocket, to dish out and distract all of you from our breakfast. You would think nothing of diving into my pocket, head first, and pinching them a mouthful at a time.

We took you out for walks on the lead with Sherbet, and the first time you just sat in my arms, checking out the world, you demanded to get down at one point, went to the loo, and then shot back up me. The next time, you were a happier to explore, but still enjoyed a cuddle as well.
The only thing we were a bit concerned about was you seemed like something was wrong when your harness slipped down your body a bit. It was like you were bruised a bit and did not like us touching you there, but as you were running around fine, and it did not seem to worry you in any way, we let it ride. We got you a new harness, and I made it a better fit, so it would not slide down you again, and this seemed to resolve the problem.

We were making progress on the biting as well, you were still up for a nip, and were still drawing blood, but most of the cuts in my hands had healed, and now they only tended to be when you got over excited and were trying to get me to play. We had a great game of you hiding behind the bathroom door, and I would put my fingers under the door, making you do somersaults to try and catch my fingers. You would get so wound up, you would start wagging your tail really fast at me drumming the door. You would also do this when I played with you in the tubes.

You were always on the go, and would wake us up at night, running down the stairs, wearing Steel tow cap boots, and then climbing back up the tube at the edge of the staircase making as much noise as possible. Often the noise would get one of the other guys up to play chase with you, and between you, you would make sure we were wide awake by the time you were tired of that game, ready to climb into the blanket box under the bed, and start snoring.

In those 70 very short days, you won all your cage mates over, and you were such a part of our lives, we were smitten with you. You would even sit in our arms for a cuddle without feeling the need to use those razor sharp teeth.



We do not really know what happened, Yesterday afternoon, you ran under Suz’s foot as she was coming down the stairs, but she felt you, and tried to step over you, falling down the stairs herself, so as not to hurt you. You ran and hid, which we assumed was because the noise had scared you. We were pretty convinced she had not actually stood on you, but just to be safe, we quickly found you, and checked you all over. The rest is a mystery. You seemed to go into shock, stopped eating, and became all lethargic. We watched you, and decided something was very wrong, rushing you to the emergency vets. They could not find anything wrong with you either, all your vitals were normal, and the scan they did, did not show anything internal either. They decided to keep you in, put you on pain killers and watch you over night. We called at 7am, and the nurse was saying how you had started to eat and drink, and while still not moving a lot, were a lot more alert. 25mins later, they called us, to tell us, you had just passed away.

I am not sure why you decided to leave us, I thought we were having so much fun and finally getting to understand each others rules. I have a huge regret that I did not get to take more pictures of you, but I knew you were only young, and Spring was just about here, so I could get some lovely shots of you outside in the sun, really enjoying your new life.

In 70 very short days, you made us fall in love with you, and become a very important part of our lives, even with your toothy flaws.

Sweet Dreams little girl, I hope your last 70 days were enough to make you love us and want to wait for us at the rainbow bridge.


I ferret proofed my house... but they still keep getting in

Weaseling out of things is important to learn! It's what separates us from the animals.....  Except the weasel....(Homer J Simpson)

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Offline girly-lazy-ferret

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Re: Peanut
« Reply #1 on: March 12, 2020, 12:31:10 AM »
Just having Peanut in our lives, watching her live, love and learn, was so worth it, even if it does hurt I would rather have had “nut nut”  for her shining short life than not.  :cry:

Watching her determination, made me realise just how much each and every one gives us and we are so lucky, I know wouldn’t have it any other way. :kiss1:

Peanut came into hard circumstances, a bonded group, with a gapping Toffee hole, Sherbert lost her hearing ears in Toffee and was not interested in any others making that quite loudly clear, not that she could hear when Peanut said so. But Peanut preserved, and sure enough Sherberts tough shell was cracked.  During her first week she would wait until Sherbert was asleep and then make sure she slept with her and worked her way around all of them, utterly courageous.

I was bruised from Toffees sudden loss, but sure enough her magic worked her way in, as she lived up to her energy filled Peanut name she was always awake so we also got to  interact during the night as I’m not a good sleeper.  She never did understand why her tail didn’t fit behind the bathroom door. She also found her way onto our bed, but hadn’t quite grasped we don’t like being bitten awake, but she was starting to learn “no” and learning how to play.

Humbug loved having a friend, even if she was a bit bemused, he bounced and plays as only he knows in his bumbling way and sure enough they batted around. Up and down the tube that runs along the stairs, I swear she was getting him into shape. :wink3:

One night I wondered what was going on and it was Peanut, she would use the stairs to go down, then gather a bit of chicken from somewhere, scurry back up the stair tube very loudly, and sit and eat the chicken at the top of the stairs before going back down for more.

I don’t know what to say other than I love you Peanut, now you were all settled in, I was planning our first caravan trip away with you, you were learning to love walking from literally hiding away to scared to get down, but walking to pets at home was starting to be rather fun, and I could only imagine what you would make of our campsite I was looking forward to finding out.

We did notice some quirks, when the delivery man came to the front door I’ve never seen an animal panic so much.  Yesterday afternoon as I was coming downstairs you ran under my sock covered foot, and as soon as I felt you tumbled down the stairs rather than hurt you. but it was like you went into shock. They couldn’t find reason at the vets.

Well you’ll have a great team of lazy ferrets up there girl, but I can sadly say now I know weather it’s just 70 days or 10 years it hurts the same.

I have a few gorgeous photo’s I will sort out when my eyes can see better.

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Re: Peanut
« Reply #2 on: March 12, 2020, 10:37:55 AM »
Oh Guys I am so so sorry to read this  :fuzzyhug: :fuzzyhug: DIP Peanut. She must of had some underlying condition, so sad  :cry:

Offline darkqueenenlightened

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Re: Peanut
« Reply #3 on: March 12, 2020, 07:41:04 PM »
 :cry: DIP peanut.  A short but adventure filled life  :fuzzyhug:
Xx Owned by the lovely Cadbury, Nyx, Mako, Boston, Gadget and Pedro.  Keep on dancing Snuggles, Fuz, Chaz, Oliver, Tali, Fidget, Pixie, Drill, Lizzie, Tank, Jack, Dust, Romeo, Zeph, Apollo, Hjuki, Alaska, Sparks and Roo xX

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Re: Peanut
« Reply #4 on: March 14, 2020, 06:44:23 PM »
So very sad to read.

Offline lazy-ferret

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Re: Peanut
« Reply #5 on: March 14, 2020, 06:48:45 PM »
Thanks guys.

I am sitting here stewing, and getting more and more annoyed at emergency vets...

From our fortunately not extensive knowledge of having to use them (I think it is about 4 times in 20 years), I feel that they are really not up to the job. They seem to be a fresh out of collage trainee, with nothing more than the rudimental training on how to administer a pain killer, and use an ultrasound (if you are lucky). They just seem to be there charging an extortionate amount of money, to basically put your pet in a cage overnight, with a bit of pain killer to either wait until it dies, or they can pass it off to someone else with more experience the next day and hope they are not too far gone.

When we took Peanut in, we gave him all the clues... we told him that she had possibly been stood on, or at the least knocked down a few stairs, also we explained she had recently had the Jill Jab, and that her tummy had swollen, but we were assuming this was a false pregnancy. We explained that she was fine, right up until the moment on the stairs, and from that moment on, she went onto what seemed to be shock, and later was being sick despite not eating anything.

If you pop online, and do a minimal bit of searching, it seems that it is not unusual for ferrets that have had the Jill Jab to get pyometra. There are two types, Open, and Closed. Basically, Open is easy to see, resulting in pus weeping from their virgina, but Closed is harder, as you do not get any external signs, as the pus is held inside. This then results in the rupturing of the uterus, and the toxic pus causing all the symptoms we were seeing. There are plenty of papers available online written for vets, and most of them say that emergency vets should be clued-up on this, as they are the ones most likely to encounter an animal with this condition and it is an extreme emergency. It happens in both dogs and ferrets, so no excuse about it being "Just" a ferret that they can't be bothered to learn about. Basically, it's an urgent spay, if the animal is to have any chance of survival.

Now, I am no scientist, or vet, and I have no way to prove that this is definitely what happened to poor little Peanut, but from reading what I have, and with hind sight being able to see the symptoms, it would be the most logical thing, and I would have expected an emergency vet to know this and to have taken it seriously. The whole point of an emergency vet, is you as the customer have decided you need their help in a hurry. Let's face it, no-one is going to spend that sort of money on a whim of just for fun. If I felt I had the time to do their research for them, I would not have felt it was an Emergency.

The thing is, vet's don't like it when you go in telling them what is wrong, the last time we did that was when we took Topic in with what we knew from previous experience were heart problems, she got the right hump, and was verging on rude when we told her, muttering something about "everyone's a vet", then seemed even more annoyed when we were right.

Somehow, we need to be able to find "out of hours" Emergency vets that actually know what they are doing. The trouble is, I do not know how we do this. Ferrets deserve to be treated by responsible people.

I am really struggling to sleep at night, as all I keep thinking about, is how Peanut had learned to trust us, was enjoying her life with her new-found friends, and because of a lack of basic training, the vet allowed our poor girl to spend the last night of her life in a strange scary place, away from the people, comforts, and animals that loved her, and slowly be poisoned to death. She did not deserve that. On top of that, Humbug and Bourneville are very down now, and we are worried about them, as they keep trying to find her and are now lethargic, and obviously sad.
I ferret proofed my house... but they still keep getting in

Weaseling out of things is important to learn! It's what separates us from the animals.....  Except the weasel....(Homer J Simpson)

Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines

Oh, see, impossible wishes, wishes that can never be granted, they produce a ferret. - Warehouse 13



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Offline lazy-ferret

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Re: Peanut
« Reply #6 on: March 14, 2020, 08:14:46 PM »




I ferret proofed my house... but they still keep getting in

Weaseling out of things is important to learn! It's what separates us from the animals.....  Except the weasel....(Homer J Simpson)

Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines

Oh, see, impossible wishes, wishes that can never be granted, they produce a ferret. - Warehouse 13



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Re: Peanut
« Reply #7 on: March 16, 2020, 11:06:24 AM »
I know exactly what you mean about emergency vets. Mine is not even local but it is the only one now that serves a large area. When Ruby stopped breathing it was awful, hubby was on the phone to get help (me trying to do CPR) the first few minutes was them explaining their fee's. I snatched the phone off hubby and screamed at the woman that I did not care about their fee's I needed help NOW. I explained what had happened and they insisted we bring Ruby in telling me to continue CPR. I now know that this was just them getting their fee's, explaining what happened to my vet he knew Ruby had died instantly, yet the emergency vets did not say this, they insisted we bring her in, just so they could charge us. My worst was Jodie our lurcher, she had bone cancer, she had jumped down the back step into the garden and screamed, we rushed her to the emergency vets and they sent us back home again saying they could find nothing wrong as it was the cancer in her leg. The following day we had to drive to Cambridge (from Birmingham) to start her cancer treatment. They x-rayed her and found her leg was broken. This is something I have never got over, my poor girl in agony with a broken leg for hours, no painkillers then a long car journey.

As for finding a good emergency vet, I wish you all the luck in the world, but I seriously think some these emergency vets are not fit for purpose. Years ago it was local vets taking it in turns to do emergency call outs, they would come to your home or you would go to their practice. As you say these emergency vets now seem to be all straight out of uni students.

Offline lazy-ferret

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Re: Peanut
« Reply #8 on: March 16, 2020, 02:47:41 PM »
I wonder if there is anything we can do about this, surely it's inhumane to let this sort of thing to happen. I would rather there not be any cover, and you to at least know that there was nothing you could do, than put so much hope into such a waste of time.

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I ferret proofed my house... but they still keep getting in

Weaseling out of things is important to learn! It's what separates us from the animals.....  Except the weasel....(Homer J Simpson)

Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines

Oh, see, impossible wishes, wishes that can never be granted, they produce a ferret. - Warehouse 13



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Re: Peanut
« Reply #9 on: March 16, 2020, 06:39:41 PM »
I did put in a complaint to my vets about the emergency vets stating how unhappy with their service I was, however nothing could have been done for Ruby anyway so the complaint was not followed up. You could complain to the RCVS there is a section on line..
https://animalowners.rcvs.org.uk/concerns/i-want-to-raise-a-concern-about-a-veterinary-surgeon/ however this is for individual complaints. It might be worth a try xx

Offline lazy-ferret

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Re: Peanut
« Reply #10 on: March 16, 2020, 09:15:42 PM »
Thanks for that link, I will have a proper look into it.
I ferret proofed my house... but they still keep getting in

Weaseling out of things is important to learn! It's what separates us from the animals.....  Except the weasel....(Homer J Simpson)

Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines

Oh, see, impossible wishes, wishes that can never be granted, they produce a ferret. - Warehouse 13



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Re: Peanut
« Reply #11 on: March 16, 2020, 09:32:24 PM »
I do have a list myself of incidents with emergency vets. My poor old Chris when she was attacked and needed stitches that was at the same emergency vets. They overdosed her when they put her under to staple her face together, she was not right for days. I am sure there must be many other people who have experienced problems getting emergency treatment.

Let us know how you get on. xx

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Re: Peanut
« Reply #12 on: March 16, 2020, 10:23:13 PM »
I have filled out the form, so we will see what comes back.

The hardest part was answering what I hoped to get out of the complaint... "our Peanut back" is not really an option, so I put this..

Quote
Vet's actually taking ferrets seriously as pets. Treating them out of hours, instead of just being able to say that they do not specialise in them and hope they make it till the next day. To have to learn about them and treat them with the same standards currently reserved for dogs and cats.
I ferret proofed my house... but they still keep getting in

Weaseling out of things is important to learn! It's what separates us from the animals.....  Except the weasel....(Homer J Simpson)

Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines

Oh, see, impossible wishes, wishes that can never be granted, they produce a ferret. - Warehouse 13



Our web site


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Re: Peanut
« Reply #13 on: March 17, 2020, 11:12:37 AM »
 :fuzzyhug: