Leo & Alice
by Sue Lloyd
When a stray ferret comes to Yarm Ferret Rescue, one can only wonder as to their past history. Last spring an extremely fat polecat arrived. He was picked up as he bobbed along the middle of a busy road. He was taken to a lady who kept ferrets and as he was very friendly she rang me to see if anyone had reported him missing. "Not to my knowledge", I replied but as I needed a hob to vasectomise, I offered him a home.
When Leo first arrived he slept solidly for two days. Unfortunately he was also so fat that he had scrub marks on his belly from where it had rubbed along the ground as he tried to run along; his teeth were filthy and the back of his neck had obviously been chewed by anothe hob although his coat was clean. After a while, his teeth cleaned up and a diet of dried food and his neck and scrub marks healed. However, despite lots of exercise and a healthy diet he still remains fat!!
More recently an albino jill entered a town house undetected, so after a good nights sleep, the lady occupant awoke to find her curled up asleep in bed! When told of this, I of course did the only thing that you could do, burst out laughing, unfortunately the lady on the other end of the telephone didn't see the funny side of it judging by the stunned silence! Alice, as she has now been named was taken in by a lady who takes in cats, she had her checked over and spayed, thus saving my rescue precious money for which I am very grateful. Alice is about a year old, in good condition, including her claws, and very tame and friendly. Surely some-one was missing her? Despite a "Ferret Found" placed in a local paper, there were no replies, so whe will now stay with me and will make a marvellous PR ferret.
Alice's skin recently came out in horrible scabs but not where she had been shaved for her spay operation. As she had had fleas some while ago, had she developed a flea allergy? Not only that but she had lovely(!) green, grass like stain on her fur on her back, who knows how that got there. The scabs are healing but they're leaving pox like marks on her skin yet her fur seems intact. Any ideas anyone?