‘LOST! One ferret. Answers to the name of Tony.’ Whilst local light poles are littered with crucified pamphlets advertising everything from garage sales to school fetes to lost cats and dogs, ferrets rarely get a look in. Perhaps people feel you can only really say so much on a light pole. In fact, it’s true to say that most people have a carport rather than a garage, but you never hear of a carport sale. Such a declaration would, no doubt, spook the horses. In the same way, it’s fine to plaster a photo of some unfortunate feline far and wide in a plea for its prompt return, but you seldom if ever see anyone begging to be notified as to the whereabouts of their missing pet hairy-backed tarantula of short-nosed crocodile. The same is true of ferrets.
‘LOST! One ferret. Answers to the name of Tony.’ Whilst local light poles are littered with crucified pamphlets advertising everything from garage sales to school fetes to lost cats and dogs, ferrets rarely get a look in. Perhaps people feel you can only really say so much on a light pole. In fact, it’s true to say that most people have a carport rather than a garage, but you never hear of a carport sale. Such a declaration would, no doubt, spook the horses. In the same way, it’s fine to plaster a photo of some unfortunate feline far and wide in a plea for its prompt return, but you seldom if ever see anyone begging to be notified as to the whereabouts of their missing pet hairy-backed tarantula of short-nosed crocodile. The same is true of ferrets.
It was just after 3am last Wednesday when, if not all hell, then at least three quarters hell broke loose downstairs. The silent, early hours of the morning were sliced open by two piercing screams from our neighbours. This, I must say, is highly unusual; they’re simply not the kind of people to make a ruckus. This screaming was followed by an avalanche of footsteps, closing doors and all manner of activity that is more suited to hand to hand combat than it is the middle of the night. This prompted some discussion as to whether we ought go down and offer assistance, in case they were trying to fend off an intruder. But the sound rising through the floorboards suggested that such assistance was not necessary.
The following day, Kate received an email from our downstairs neighbours politely enquiring as to whether we were missing a ferret. It must be said that such an email is not easy to write. As it turns out, they had been sleeping when they heard a scratching sound in their bedroom and, out of curiosity, switched on the light. The illumination revealed a somewhat surprised ferret which, in turn, inspired the squealing and scrambling that followed.
Nobody expects a ferret. After managing to evict the vagrant mammal from their apartment, our neighbours were then startled to find that the furry little intruder returning through the cat-flap, setting off a second wave of commotion. In response to the question: ‘have you – per chance – misplaced a ferret?’ I was able to answer with almost complete certainty that this was not the case. In fact, so far as we could ascertain, no one in our block of apartments was a secret ferret fancier. Having tossed the interloper out, it then took up residence in the courtyard, eyeing off tenants as they went to start their cars. To know that the creature was still lurking somewhere in the back yard was somewhat unnerving. For all I knew, it was now in the mood for revenge and could easily launch an attack from a hiding place under the stairs at any moment.
It’s never pleasant to lose a pet. Many years ago, my brother Lachlan had a pet mouse named ‘Manceton’. He was allowed to keep said creature in his bedroom, incarcerated in a disused budgerigar cage. But like Papillon, Manceton was not about to allow himself to be imprisoned for very long. There began a series of escapes, the likes of which would put most ferrets to shame. Generally, these rodent prison breaks ended after a short period of time in which my brother would tear through the house in search of his escaped pet. In one way, you have to admire its determination. How it managed to get away, much less smuggle a pair of wire cutters into its cage in the first place, quite rightly boggles the mind.
However, the day inevitably came when Manceton escaped and could not be found. We held our suspicions, of course. For whilst Manceton no longer occupied his cage, his odour continued to occupy my brother’s room. Over time, the mouse-like scent carried with it the whiff of decay and it seemed likely that poor Manceton – desperate to escape – had got himself stuck in some corner of the room and had perished there. Years later, a small mouse-sized skeleton was discovered in the curtain railing. Alas poor Manceton. All you craved was freedom.
Whilst all those in the surrounding apartments declared they knew nothing of the ferret, one reported hearing someone from the next block over calling out for ‘Tony’ at about 5am. To their extraordinary credit, our neighbours rang local vets in the hope that this might reveal the owner of a ferret named ‘Tony’. Whether describing the resulting reunion as a ‘miracle’ is not only going overboard but recklessly disregarding the lifejackets in the process probably doesn’t matter. A grateful owner collected a disoriented ferret to return it to its home. Our neighbours, I suspect, are likely to add some kind of keypad to the cat flap as a means of upping the security level.
There’s nothing worse than losing a beloved pet. More than that, it’s quite a big deal to find something so precious to somebody else, especially at three o’clock in the morning. That’s a mighty responsibility. In a sense, it doesn’t matter what you love – cat, dog or blue-tongued lizard. Having a pet reveals something about all of us. It’s well proven that having a pet increases your general health and wellbeing. I’m not a bit surprised. Especially when the pet in question is a ferret named Tony.