We’ve been letting Pickle have free run of the bedroom and living room here, figuring that the most un-ferret-resistant rooms would be the bathroom and the kitchen. While she doesn’t care about the kitchen, she loves to try to follow us into the bathroom while we do our business.

Last night, Eddie tells me to hold onto Pickle for a minute while he gets into there and closes the door. All is well and good for about 5 minutes, when I hear Eddie open the bathroom door and call me to come check out what’s up. He’s holding her up and says “Your ferret….”

It’s never good when he refers to Pickle as my ferret.

“Your ferret was in the cabinet under the sink. There must be a hole in the bedroom closet.” Sure enough, I turn on enough lights to see into the bedroom closet and discover that there is a 8″ x 4″ hole in the wall that separates the closet from the bathroom, and it leads directly into the cabinet of the bathroom. I’m sure that if I check out under the cabinet, I’ll discover that there’s a bunch of ferret food and some toys, like she’s built herself a little fallout shelter under there. Eddie should be picking up some of that expanding foam today so that we can plug things up, since she seems to have no problem getting into the closet, even with the doors closed.

While house sitting for my mother’s animals, the only really ferret proof room in the house is the bathroom. The cabinets are all locking, the little trash basket has a heavy lid, and Pickle can run around and play with her little toys without getting into trouble. Last week I put her in there while we had dinner, and went back to get her an hour or so later. I open the bathroom door expecting her to be right there as usual, but there’s no sign of Pickle anywhere. I check the cabinets to make sure they’re all closed, check the tub and behind the toilet, and right as panic sets in and I’m firmly believing that she’s managed to teleport out somehow, I hear a little sound behind me and find that Pickle has made herself a nest out of my mother’s tissue box.

A full tissue box.

I schedule Pickle for a vet’s appointment for about 10:30am, sent Eddie a text letting him know what was up, called work to let them know I’d probably be late, and settled down on the couch with my very lethargic weasel. Eddie came home so I’d have someone with me at the office, gave Pickle some loves and we sat on the couch for about 5 minutes before we got a phone call from the vet’s office telling us to go to the emergency vet in East Greenwich because they don’t like to have people wait in situations like this when they’ve got exotic pets. Another 25 minutes and we’re down at the other office filling out paperwork while Pickle sleeps in the carrier.

Eventually we get into the exam room where Pickle is quite content to sit in the carrier and ignore everyone. She’s not vomiting anymore, but she’s definitely not behaving like her normal ball of energy yet. She’s not impressed with the tech trying to get her temperature at all. A few minutes later the vet comes in to check her and Pickle comes out, steals her pen, and goes back into the crate. We put her on the floor while the vet heads into the back for a bit, and suddenly we’ve got a normal ferret again, investigating every inch of the room, trying to get into the cabinets and drawers, etc. The vet thinks that she may have gotten into something that she shouldn’t have, but based on her prior history Eddie and I don’t really think that - she’s a hoarder and a digger, not a chewer. Either way, she’s home with me (having taken the rest of the day out) being monitored, and getting little bits of water and food at a time. And just a second ago she chased the cat.

I finally got Eddie’s Sims working for him yesterday, and sent him all of the custom content that I’ve got in my installation.

Pickle’s going to the vet today, she was fine and eating when I went back to sleep this morning, but she’s been vomiting since I got up. Poor little thing

Pickle the Wonderferret says….