Now this is something which is a ferret owner’s nightmare … but thank goodness it has a happy ending!

It’s utterly amazing that Freckles the ferret spent 35 minutes in the washing machine and came out to tell the tale.

I would stress again and again to all ferret owners, just be so careful when you load the washing machine.

Don’t think for a moment that your ferret/s won’t investigate what’s inside that nice, big, round circular thing – ALWAYS shut the door if you’ve put washing in and are thinking of going to another room to get some more to load up.

Same if you have a top loader. Ferrets can climb and they can scale up the back of a washing machine quite easily if it’s pressed against the wall. You have the top open, the ferret will go inside to investigate and ………………. !

A horrifying thought.

On May 21, Freckles spent 35 minutes in the Foutzes’ washing machine and lived to have somebody else tell his story.

Andrea Foutz, the mother of two and wife of former Cave Spring High School football coach Ben Foutz, doesn’t know when she’ll be able to do laundry again.On the morning in question, she had put one load of dark-colored laundry into the washing machine before heading to her children’s bedrooms in search of any stray garments.

Freckles did not have a history with the washing machine, but he was known to wander.”He goes everywhere,” she said. “He opens closet doors, he burrows, he gets into (son) Zachary’s dresser drawers, even though the drawers are closed. We let him out for an hour, he gets tired, he crawls up in the dresser and sleeps.”

One of Freckles’ favorite pastimes is to collect flip-flops from the various Foutz closets and stack them under Zachary’s bed.”

I put the clothes in, went downstairs and put the kids on the bus, and I sat down to work on the computer,” Andrea Foutz said. “About 8 o’clock, Ben came down and said, ‘You know, this is really funny, but I haven’t seen Freckles.’”

I thought, ‘That’s weird because he follows us everywhere.’”

The Foutzes have a gate that keeps Freckles upstairs and away from their dog, Abby, a wire-haired fox terrier. “We don’t let them out at the same time because, technically, Abby is bred to hunt vermin,” Foutz said.

Are ferrets considered vermin?

“I don’t know,” she said, “but they look enough like them.”

Freckles not only follows family members around the house, but has been known to come running when his name is called. When Foutz went upstairs to intensify the search, she heard a click that the washing machine makes when it switches to the spin cycle.”

It stopped and, all of a sudden, I got that feeling of, ‘Oh, my God,’” she said.

inRich – News – Ferret safe after run-in with washer

All-About-Ferrets.com

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