Amelie

I rented a car so I could go to a ferret shelter in Yonkers; I would have taken a train but ferrets are illegal in the five boroughs so I would have been too nervous smuggling it all the way back to Brooklyn, pretending it was a cat.

The shelter turned out to be some woman's house whose garage had been converted into a 20+ ferret apartment.  The plan had been to get a dark grey one with a black mask because, as superficial as we were, we thought those were the cutest.  Besides, our last pets, the rats, had been completely white and we wanted to get a little diversity into the family.

When I got there, she (ferret-lady) opened all of the cages and let me interact with them a little.  The youngest ferret in the room was a male, grey, with a black mask.  In hind sight I probably should have picked that one.  I know now that young ferrets will never give you adequate attention, especially when they first wake up to play; I'm sure we would have bonded with him sooner than later.

This was the first time I had been able to touch a live ferret, so I wasn't really sure what I was looking for.  I knelt down in the middle of the room and picked a few up, pet a few as they tiptoed around and played with each other.  All of a sudden, there was Amelie.  She had approached without my noticing, probably because she was white which was of course the wrong color.  She did have a faint mask of light brown but certainly nothing like the bandit that we hoped for.

She put her front paws on my leg, the only one in the room to actually approach me on its own.  I lifted her up and she immediately sniffed at my face and clothes and started to burrow her tiny face under my jacket.  I knew she was mine.


Over the next year she grew more and more affectionate; Kim and I fell in love with her.  She potty trained almost immediately, and didn't have any of the undesirable scent we had heard so much about.  She was adorable and even Kim said she couldn't imagine ever not having a ferret ever again.  We would find her sleeping in the most bizarre places and positions.  When she was awake she dug in our boots and stole the soles from our shoes.  She pilfered Chapstick, chewing gum, and tampons from purses, rummaged through gym bags and suit cases, and fixated on trying to drag the guitar for the Guitar Hero games under the couch.  Then there were my favorite moments with her:  I would roll her on her back and scratch the back of her neck and she would lick the tip of my nose.  She didn't like to be held for very long, but eventually when I picked her up she would lick my nose and face and ears for several minutes before she was ready to be put back down.  Perhaps I was just salty, but it sure seemed like affection to me.

Something was missing.

She needed someone else to play with.  She did the most adorable moping technique where she would come into a room and as soon as we looked at her she would squash herself onto the ground looking bored and pathetic.  If we left the room she would follow us and repeat.  Eventually we broke down and went back to Yonkers where we adopted her two younger sisters: Yubaba and Zaniba.





It took a little while for her to acclimate to the new invaders, but before long they were all sleeping together in an adorable ferret ball.  The new girls played a bit too rough for Amelie who we estimated to be around 5 years old by then, but eventually they all learned what was appropriate and got along great.

Not long before we moved from New York, she started to get sick.  One day Kim found her clawing and scratching at the roof of her mouth.   Not being familiar with ferret illnesses it was quite alarming, but the vet let us know that it was normal behavior after vomiting.  Unfortunately she never quite got well again.

The long road trip across the country wasn't the easiest on her either.  Because we were smuggling them into hotel rooms that didn't accept pets, we had to keep them in the bathrooms overnight.  Though she normally slept in a locked cage, Amelie did not handle this banishment to the bathroom well, and scratched frantically at the door in the middle of the night until finally we let her out.  We put her in the bed with us and she immediately curled up and went to sleep.

Weeks later we found her having trouble walking. she seemed drunk and unable to keep her balance, yet frantically tried to run around.  The vet diagnosed her with an insulin tumor which caused her sugar levels to be out of whack, and she had some related intestinal problems.  The medicine he prescribed would have to be administered to her every other day for a few weeks, and eventually less frequently, but she would have to take it forever.  The problem was, Amelie hated it.  Giving her the medicine was wildly traumatizing for her, and every administration became an ordeal.  Afterward she would mope around and ignore us, pawing again at her mouth.

The medicine worked well enough and she was able to regain a little of her former personality at times, but not often.  She still had her sisters, but I'm afraid we had become the people who kept force feeding her the medicine she hated so much.

We kept it up for almost a year, but she got worse.  She wouldn't sleep with her sisters any more.  She slept longer and longer and eventually only got up to go to the bathroom.  She wasn't able to play or steal or investigate new things.  By the end I suspect she was completely blind.  Soon, the only time she really would let us touch her was if she was already laying down and then she would accept some scratching.  She would rarely let me roll her onto her back anymore and scratch her neck, but when she did, she would still lick the tip of my nose.  Eventually that stopped too.  She didn't even seemed to recognize us anymore.

Then the seizures started.  She would make a terrible hissing noise, would bare her fangs, and drool would run out of her mouth.  It was terrible to see her that way.  We knew it was time to say goodbye to our little Amelie.  When it was time to go to the vet, I found her lazing in her hammock, fast asleep.  I reached in and scratched the back of her neck as I had so many times before.  Whether because she was dreaming, sleeping, or having a moment of clarity I don't know, but she gave me a gift.  She pressed into my hand and began to lick  like she used to when she was well.  

The euthanasia was to be administered in two parts.  First a mild sedative would be injected painlessly into her belly.  Once sedated, an intravenous injection would stop her heart.  Lying on Kim's lap, Amelie drifted to sleep and died from the sedative alone.


I write this because I loved her and I want to remember her. 

- Ender

"I am a little bored.  But if you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life.  I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all the others.  Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground.  Yours will call me, like music, out of my burrow.  Please tame me!  One only understands the things that one tames," said the fox. -- The Little Prince