I am still reeling in shock at how quickly his illness progressed and how it took only 3 full days from getting a red flag alert to burying him

As some of you might now, Angus had adrenal gland disease (AGD) and had a Suprelorin implant inserted into him a year ago. He was doing great after his hair grew back and seemed his usual self – rearranging the Ugg boots and my Ugg slippers, doing his weasel wardance on the bed with his usual bouncy enthusiasm, dragging the bathmat into the sitting room and washing my face with ferret kisses every morning. He was really was such a funny little character!

Angus when he was just 7 weeks old, lying on the bed

Just by the by, I had reconstruction surgery on my right knee in December and it didn’t work, so I was practically housebound until end of March, when I had my 3rd knee replacement. Got out of hospital quickly but I couldn’t drive until last week so as Angus was losing hair on his back, I called the vet last Tuesday to arrange another Suprelorin implant for the Friday, May 11, as my (ferret) vet only works once a week now.

Angus complaining to Bonnie about the 3 girls who were picking on him

Angus always had a real thing for orange juice and whenever I sat in my chair in the mornings to drink my glass, he’d come running and practically climb up my arm to get a lick out of my glass. I was always very careful to make sure he only had 2-3 licks at the most but once I finished my glass, I’d put it down on its side on the floor and Angus would be there to lick the residue.

Wednesday morning he came for his morning OJ but he didn’t do it as enthusiastically as he normally did. He got his 2 licks and I noticed his breath smelled pretty foul! After that mistake with Seamus, my first thought was dental problems, especially after I’d seen him drinking from the dog’s dish earlier that morning and then rubbing his chin on the carpet. However, apart from that, he didn’t seem to be off-colour or ill in any way so I wasn’t too concerned. I was taking him to see Fiona on Friday so thought it wasn’t too long a wait if he did have a cavity or something else wrong with his tooth.

All the ferrets were curled up in the Chest of Drawers Hilton that afternoon – the weather had turned so they were happy to cuddle each other and sleep but that night, I kept him in our bedroom to monitor how much he was eating and drinking, as I’d notice his poop also smelled dreadful and wasn’t the usual size.

I had put small dishes of kibble, turkey mince, water and their smoothie by his hammock (a converted dog bed frame) and whenever I heard him come out of the chest of drawers, I checked but didn’t see him eating or drinking anything. In the morning, my concern was confirmed.

It might sound silly but I find that with albino ferrets, when they get sick their eyes tend to get a bit slanty and it’s pretty obvious. Angus’ eyes were like that on Thursday morning and, with his balding back, he looked so thin and unwell.

I got some turkey mince and offered it to him – he ate it but it wasn’t with any enthusiasm so I knew I had to get something more substantial from the vet. Went there and bought some electrolytes, a can of A/D formula, a small tube of Nutrigel and some syringes, then came home and made up his food.

A/D formula, egg yolk, squirt of Nutrigel and a teensy little bit of hot water to make it sloppy, all mixed together and syringed up for the boy. It looked like he had his teeth firmly closed – he really did NOT want to eat anything but I put the syringe into the pouch of his cheek and slowly squeezed the formula out. The last thing I wanted was for him to swallow that into his lungs

That went on every 2 hours and the alternate hours were for syringing electrolytes into his mouth. Again he did not want to have anything and that really worried me.

That night I was up every hour giving him his electrolytes and A/D formula but he resisted me so around midnight hubby suggested I should let Angus sleep and do the same thing myself. I reluctantly agreed with his suggestion!

Once it was time to get up, I started him on his feeding/water routine again until it was time to take him to Fiona.

She was horrified by his condition. Angus was never a big boy – he was my lean, lanky boy so when he was looking good, he was under 1kg – around 900g. When Fiona weighed Angus, she found he’d lost 200g

I mentioned the tooth business but when Fiona checked his teeth, she said there was nothing there which would cause the bad breath. Plus we both agreed that a bad tooth wouldn’t produce such foul smelling breath out of the blue.

She felt his belly and was concerned that she couldn’t feel his liver as she said most adrenal ferrets have swollen livers.

She wanted him to have an ultrasound and I said yes sure, except I couldn’t drive him to PVE in Osborne Park as my knee wasn’t up to it yet, plus the parking there was terrible and they had 5 high stairs going to the front door, which I couldn’t have managed.

Fiona, bless her, spoke to Shannon, her vet nurse, and Shannon offered to take Angus – there was only one appointment left for an ultrasound at 2.45 which Fiona snapped up, so Shannon was happy to go there after finished her shift.

She came to take Angus and I sat in my chair, twisting my hands anxiously. Shannon brought Angus back at 3.45 and said they didn’t give her any information so we had to wait till they rang and told the duty vet what was wrong with him.

When Philip came home, I asked him to please answer all phone calls – I knew that I’d just start sobbing if she said Angus’ case was terminal because I knew, in my heart, that it was.

The phone rang, Philip answered and the only thing I twigged was Philip saying “What time shall we bring him in tomorrow” so I knew there was nothing that they could do for him :’( According to the ultrasound report, Angus was suffering from either Acute or Chronic Renal Failure and, as the symptoms appeared so suddenly, it was Acute (ARF) This is a pretty rare thing to happen to ferrets but if it does, there’s nothing that can be done for them

Right away I had to check to see if the OJ licks might have caused his kidney problems. Nothing really about ferrets but there were websites which talked about OJ being lethal for male rats and … guess what … you had to give the rat one glass a day for quite a while to cause their kidneys to pack up. I was almost in tears with relief as I honestly was so scared that I was to blame for all this because I allowed my boy to have those 2-3 licks of OJ on occasion.

I wrapped him in a towel and placed him next to my side in the bed because I really didn’t want him to leave us feeling alone. There were times when I was awake, and I felt him struggle to jump down to the floor so put him down myself. There were other times when I slept through his movements. I remember putting him down on the floor around 10pm then falling into a deep sleep till midnight. When I got up, I checked his hammock and he wasn’t there.

I was in a panic, as I knew from experience dying ferrets could end up in all kinds of strange corners so I went wandering around the open areas of our house, looking for him. Nada! Zilch! I came back to the bedroom in a fit of despair and, just out of curiosity, lifted our doona (quilt) and found Angus zizzing peacefully at the foot of Philip’s side.

I brought him over to my side and he curled up happily and so we slept till around one-ish, when he started to struggle. I tried to calm him and talk him down but nothing worked, so we got the cat carrier and placed him in there. I was so hoping he’d pass quietly by morning.

No such luck! We checked the carrier and Angus was still moving – standing with all his fur puffed out together with his “poopy” tail. I asked Philip to please ring the vet and cancel the appointment we made – I knew he wouldn’t last much longer in his condition and the last thing I wanted is for him to be taken to a strange place, with vet smells, that would stress him out totally. He seemed to be totally out of it and so I hope I made the right decision and he wasn’t in pain.

He passed soon after that and I hope that he found Seamus and the rest of the gang who are up there and is now chillin’ with his buddies while waiting for me to join them.

Angus McNaughty
2006 - 2012

Well I hang my head in shame

For the past 17 years I haven’t had any problems with my ferrets’ teeth. In fact, my vet has always complimented me on the great condition of all my guys’ teeth so when Seamus stopped eating his kibble, it never occurred to me that he might have problems with his tooth, or teeth even!

I wrote about Seamus’ glaucoma a couple of months ago and for those of you who didn’t read the article, you can see his blind right eye again in this photo …

Stay with me here – there’s reason to my madness talking about glaucoma when the title is about dental problems

About 6 weeks ago it occurred to me that I didn’t see him munching on his kibble much and so mentioned it to Philip. He said he’d seen him eating it so I didn’t worry until a few weeks later when it seemed like he was looking a bit thin.

I give them all a daily smoothy and their evening “treat” is a plate of turkey mince which they have at night. I noticed that Seamus was gobbling (pun intended ) down his turkey and seemed to enjoy his smoothy and I had a passing thought then that maybe he might have a problem with a tooth which was preventing him from eating the kibble.

I lifted his lips to see if I could see any bad teeth but I couldn’t see anything which raised any alarms. Then, when I put him down and saw him playing in that blue bucket playground we have for the ferrets and opening the tops of the empty plastic bottles we put in there for them, the bad tooth thought flittered out of my mind as quickly as it came in.

Seamus seemed to have a couple of good days then he’d have a quiet day, and that seemed like a routine so I went on the computer and went to see if I could find out what might be the cause of his odd behaviour. Naturally the search term included “glaucoma” and what I found freaked me out …

Lymphoma
A common type of cancer in ferrets, which affects the orbit (rather than the eye itself), is retrobulbar lymphoma. In this disease, the tumor grows behind the eyeballs and pushes them out of their sockets.

Retrobulbar lymphoma and glaucoma are easily confused, according to Burgess.

That was it!

I was convinced that my poor old man had retrobulbar lymphoma and not glaucoma! AND … as I didn’t want him to go through another ultrasound and biopsy like he had last year, I decided I would just increase his supplements to try and fight it.

This went on for 3 weeks and over the course of those weeks, it was getting harder and harder for me to get him to eat. It was also during this time that I noticed that his breath smelled but … of course, being convinced he had a cancerous tumour behind his eye, I automatically thought the bad breath was due to the cancer invading his kidneys! Oy vey … how great is my ability to imagine the worst possible thing!

I bought A/D formula and mixed it with chicken stock to make it slushy and added Pedialyte infant multivits and had to syringe it into him just so that he got food into him.

Two weekends ago he totally refused to open his mouth for me, he looked so anorexic and dehydrated and I noticed he had a white film in his mouth which smelled dreadful so I rang my vet in a panic and raced him down, absolutely convinced that this was his final trip.

My vet, Fiona, managed to stick a needle into his back to pump saline solution subcutaneously to rehydrate him while she looked in his mouth. She found that he had an abscess in his gum, as well as a cracked tooth right at the back which I hadn’t been able to see when I lifted his lips.

She pumped him full of painkillers and antibiotics and said that once he was better, she had to remove that cracked tooth so ordered me to get him better asap. I brought him back for a follow-up check-up 2 days later and Fiona was pleased to see that he’d gained 100g. She told me to keep doing what I was doing so that he’d be fit for the procedure which was planned for today.

I doubled the supplements in his smoothy and kept on syringing the A/D broth into his mouth every hour on the hour for the past week. Took him to the vet this morning hoping that he’d get through the procedure without any dramas.

Got the phone call this afternoon to say everything went well and I could come and collect him. Phew – talk about a sigh of relief!

He had THREE teeth taken out – even my vet was surprised that his teeth were in such bad condition – and we thought that maybe Seamus’ party trick of getting hold of any kind of bottle and taking the tops off could have been the cause of all his problems.

This is his party trick ….

So … if you notice ANY change in your ferret’s eating habits, please don’t be a dill like me and assume that it’s some dreadful cancer which is causing the problem.

Think bad tooth first and foremost and take your little friend down to the vet for a check up and save weeks of discomfort for your little guy and a whole lot of stress for you Gah!

Take a look …. don’t you think he’s looking a whole lot better?

This is the before shot, taken a couple of weeks ago …

and this photo was taken this morning …

As you can see, he’s lost that translucent skin but now he has a yellowish tinge to both his skin and his fur. I don’t know if that is due to the fact that his hair is growing back slowly or if it’s because of the DHA Omega I’m giving him.

I say that because, in the past, when I’ve had a ferret with a shaved belly from an ultrasound or whatever, the skin looks a bit blue when the fur starts coming through. I know it’s different because in Angus’ case his hair fell out but, as I’ve never experienced this before, I don’t know what colour the skin goes when the new hair starts sprouting.

As I say in my tag line, “The more I know ferrets, the more I know I don’t know“! It sounds like something Donald Rumsfeld would say but it’s true. Even after 17 years of owning these gorgeous animals, I’m finding out new things about them, and certainly haven’t stopped learning new things about them either

But I’m convinced that the DHA Omega is helping both the old boys.

With Seamus I have visual proof – he’s so perky now and gives back as good as he gets when the youngsters jump on him and start annoying him.

Angus hasn’t slowed down since he was diagnosed with AGD but I’m hoping that the DHA Omega will shrink his tumour and make it all go away so that he won’t need to have another implant next year when this one runs out

Stay tuned …..!

I’ve dodged this bullet for SEVENTEEN years!  Imagine that!

Well – actually that’s not entirely true, as Muis my albino girl who developed insulinoma got it at the end of her life but the AGD was as a result of her insulinoma.

You might have read my post about Seamus, when I thought he had AGD and took him for an ultrasound and biopsy, but – thankfully – both found that there was nothing wrong with his adrenal glands.

Angus was fine until the middle of February, when it seemed like the hair on his back was thinning. Being an albino, it was hard to see and say – OMG! Yes! His hair’s thinning! – but over the weeks it became obvious that it was.

I spoke to a friend, who’s also a WAFFS’ committee member, and she agreed that the bilateral hair loss on Angus’ spine was a sign of adrenal gland disease.

She told me that WAFFS’ vet, Dave Neck, doesn’t like to operate on ferrets older than 5 years and suggests that it’s far better to give them a suprelorin implant. It’s not cosmetic, as I originally thought, it helps to suppress the production of GnRH in the brain which, in turn, suppresses the production of hormones from the adrenal glands.

Well, Angus had his implant last Thursday (March 24) and it takes about 2 weeks to see any improvement so …. I shall let you know how he goes next Thursday.

I must say that the disease hasn’t slowed him down at all. He is just the most fantastic weasel wardancer in the gang and watching his antics today, I thought that perhaps I should have called him Rudolf (as in Nureyev) instead of Angus. He has this ridiculous jump which lands him on his side and when he does land on his side, he sticks both arms and legs out and goes all silly! It’s the funniest thing I’ve seen … must get it on video to show you all

But seriously – if it weren’t for his hair loss I wouldn’t have know he was sick and I hope that by having the implant, he’ll grow all his hair back, calm down a bit (he was always a bit of a Neanderthal but recently seems a bit more of one!) and gets back to being the sweet, smoochy boy that he was in the past!

I”ll keep you appraised on how he’s getting on

My brave little old lady lost her fight and died on Friday morning

I honestly thought she was going to be with us for longer, as she was so active when she was up. She used to power walk around the house, so fast that I had to scurry to keep up with her if I was trying to give her her medication or smoothy.

However I do think she had more going on inside than just insulinoma. She had a bump over her left eye — I’d asked my vet about it and she agreed it could be a tumour there but, without X-rays, it was impossible to confirm or deny. We thought that the stress of putting her under for X-rays would be too much for her so decided to leave it and hope it wasn’t anything awful.

She used to like cuddling us at night so I’d bring her up to lie next to me while I was reading but, before going to sleep, I’d put her down on her sheepskin as I was worried about her jumping off the bed and hurting herself.

On Thursday night she was sleeping next to me then I heard her breathing start to get rapid so I lifted the cover and suddenly she had a very strong spasm, where her little body shook and trembled and her legs and arms were sticking out.

I knew this was not a good sign so I put her on her sheepskin and covered her to keep her warm. I woke up around 1:30am and checked on her. I saw she hadn’t moved since I put her there so I put a drop of smoothy on my finger and put that against her lips, to see if she’d react.

She didn’t.

I tried to go back to sleep but by 3am I couldn’t, so I picked her up and held her. She was pretty much in a coma by this stage and occasionally she’d start jerking for a while, then stop, was quiet for a while before jerking again. I just stoked her and told her that Muis was waiting to play with her at the Rainbow Bridge so she shouldn’t fight it and just go.

She didn’t want to. She stayed with us for another 4 hours until finally it was time for her to let go and leave us.

So that is the end of the “old guard”.

The trio, Seamus, Angus and Mojo, are all naughty youngsters and their silliness does make me laugh; however I don’t have anyone left who wants to cuddle or who is happy to just lie on my lap and sleep while I watch TV.

I suppose they might want to do that as they get longer in the tooth but I’m in no hurry for that to happen so I guess I will just be content with having them weasel wardance around my feet

RIP Kahlua, and say hi to Muis and the others for me. I shall miss you terribly and look forward to cuddling you again one day.

Kahlua’s initial dose of Pred was for 0.5ml once a day but after she continued to get her low blood sugar drop (LBSD) sessions while on it, I decided I should increase it to 0.5ml twice a day, like Muis had.

I took her to see my vet just to make sure she agreed with my decision and, would you believe, Kahlua had another LBSD episode while we were there.  My vet gave her a couple of smears of Nutrigel and within minutes Kahlua came good.

Then, about a week later, I noticed that there was a bump over Kahlua’s left eye.  Of course I started thinking “brain tumour” and was stressing about some of the strange symptoms Kahlua had.

I had found her lying on her hammock looking out of it and although I didn’t think it was a LBSD episode, I still rubbed Nutrigel on her gums as a precaution.  She didn’t react for a while but when she did, her back feet had a claw-like appearance and she had a lot of “snot” coming out of her nose.

After she came out of her episode, I gave her her smoothy and she was very wobbly on her feet. As you can see from the photo, her left foot was still scrunched up like a claw and it took a while before she straightened it out.

She seemed to have a good appetite and ate her smoothy happily; when she decided it was time to go, she walked without any wobbles and her back feet straightened out.  It was like nothing odd had happened at all.

Anyway, I took her to my vet about her eye and apparently she has a cataract in her left eye and there was inflammation around it.  She had antibiotics prescribed for her and the vet said that the medication should help to reduce the lump over her eye and also stop the “snot” from coming out of her nose as the inflammation was blocking her nasal passage.

Since being on the antibiotics, she hasn’t had another LBSD episode but she did have one where she was lying with her gums drawn back over her teeth and doing the rapid shallow breathing bit.  That went on for a couple of hours, then she seemed to wake up and act as if nothing had happened.

It really is so odd and so stressful for me as I don’t know what to think and I honestly don’t know what to do. Those odd episodes come very infrequently (thank God) and she seems to be fine afterwards.  The thing is, she never has those episodes when I can grab her and rush her down to the vet.

I guess as long as she acts like she’s not in pain and still has quality of life, I shouldn’t be too worried.  She eats well, she poops and piddles normally, and if it weren’t for those odd occasions, I really wouldn’t be stressing.

Ahh the joys of ferret ownership ….!

Oh phoo – double phoo! I really didn’t think that my sweet old silvermitt would get insulinoma so soon after Muis but she has. Cr@p!

Before Christmas she had some funny “turns” – she’d walk around and suddenly look like she was lost. Nothing like the dazed look I’ve come to know with insulinoma. Oh no. I honestly thought she had Alzheimers! She’d stand there and look left then right as if to say “Which way I am supposed to go!”

Then on Christmas Eve I had a scare when she had some totally weird breathing problems. She was lying in our bed after having one of her “Alzheimers” confusion sessions earlier and she seemed okay until I heard a really strange noise coming from her.

Her breathing started off slow then got progressively faster then went back to normal and it kept on going like that for a while.

I had her on my chest and was stroking her and when I moved her back onto the bed, my nightie was wet where her mouth had been. Her mouth was open, her lips drawn back and I thought I was looking at her death mask, I really did. I got out of bed, grabbed a towel, put it on the bed between us and put Kahlua on it and I honestly thought that she wasn’t going to be with us for much longer.

The rapid burst of breathing went on for about an hour, then she started making an odd clicking sound. You know you can get those tin clickers out of Christmas crackers or whatever – that was the sound she was making when she was breathing. There’d be 3 or 4 clicks then silence, then 3 or 4 clicks again.

By this time it was close to midnight and she suddenly went all quiet. I felt her stomach and couldn’t feel her breathing so felt her paws and her nose. I turned on the light and saw that her neck was arched, although nothing like Muis’ or Kaos’ necks when they were in their death throes, so despite seeing that and feeling her body and finding it still warm, I had convinced myself she was on death’s door.

At this stage Philip woke up and asked why I was snottering, so I explained that I thought Kahlua was dead. He felt her and said, “No, she’s fine.”

I scowled at him and said, “No way! She’s dying, or dead now!” and he said “Feel her!”

I did and she felt warm and was breathing perfectly normally. Next thing I know she wakes up and wants to get off the bed, so I put her on the floor and she toodled around before climbing into the drawer (of the chest of drawers) and going to sleep.

I was exhausted, I can tell you, and count that night as the worst Christmas Eve I have ever had!

Then on January 2, we were walking out of the kitchen to head for the bedroom and I saw Kahlua lying splat on the floor near the linen cupboard. I spoke to other ferret owners and they all thought it was a heat thing but, although it was warm at the time, I still had my doubts.

Took Kahlua to the vet and she checked her out and said there was nothing she could find and, since I had no definite symptoms, there was basically nothing I could tell her apart from her “odd behaviour”.

THEN it happened.

On Sunday morning (the 10th) I walked into the sitting room and found her lying on Zac’s bed, completely floppy and totally out of it, even though her eyes were open.

I took her into our bedroom and got some Nutrigel, rubbed it on her gums and got a syringe full of smoothy to give her. Well, within a few seconds she was licking the smoothy from the end of the syringe and seemed perfectly fine. I put her down on the bed with the smoothy bowl and although I had to hold her upright, she was licking the liquid up with great gusto.

* sigh *

I called my vet first thing on the Monday morning but she was away till Wednesday and obviously the staff there wouldn’t give Kahlua any prednisone without the vet’s say so.

So there we go … I was totally fooled by Kahlua’s confusion as it was nowhere like CJ’s or Muis’ dazed look. Then the strange breathing session and the way she lay “splat” on the floor – I reckon now that that was a mini-blood sugar drop.

I have a new sig file …”The more I know ferrets, the more I know I don’t know!” and I can’t tell you how true that is.

It’s my 16th year of ferret ownership and I’m still scratching my head wondering if I have it right and am doing the right thing by my babies!