Florida Ferret Forum

Driving home today I was in such an incredible mood. I had such a great time, met wonderful people, listened to wise people speak and made a haul. I drove up Friday night so that I could join in the “Meet and Greet” There were about 15 people that had made it and we all made our introductions in the rooms where the forum was to be held and eventually moved to the bar for some adult beverages, I met Julie Fossa finally… a ferret enthusiast that I have conversed with many time through e-mails and brought my girl Liberty down from Ohio. I met several other folks that ran rescues or knew by name only through the FML. We all sat and chatted with each other until about 11PM. It was so cool hanging out with people who WANTED to talk ferrets and didn’t roll their eyes when you mentioned your furkids. Today (Saturday) was filled with medical lectures by Dr Vargas, Dr Cottrell and Dr Ernest, Vicki Caldwell spoke on animal abuse, hoarding and how to stop and report it…..how to get action when it seems none of the agencies care. Lastly was Shelly Trulock on life with ferrets…..full of antidotes…… all stories we could relate to and laugh about. Our surprise speaker was Travis Livieri (I think I have that right) from the Black Footed Ferrets…Prairie Restoration.. So awesome! He auctioned off a BFF package that had one of his photographs…autographed of course…… a poster, a book, a t-shirt and a BFF stuffie. He ended up getting $200.00 for it!! In total there was maybe 40 people. Julie said she was happy with the turnout. There were raffles galore and the vendors had some awesome stuff…..ferret bedding, ferret jewelry, ferret towels, ferret purses and bags…. Treats….meds…… first aid kits….., tons of stuff.. The goodie bags had great stuff………… Here is what was in it, along with coupons to ferret supply companies.





I spent 40 bucks on raffle tickets….. I figured even if I only got one thing I would be happy and I knew the money was going to a good cause.










Is that like the MOST AWESOME coffee mug ever!!


And yes!!, I won that cage...... not a Feret Nations, but Prevue's version....a few changes to make it safer will be needed, but when I get my ferret room back I don't have to go and buy my second cage now. As you can see, I made a haul…..spent $40.00 but got back at least $175.00 in goods. There was another 3 or 4 bags of food I also won, but I gave those to Patti, who is a volunteer with DookNook Ferret Shelter and Rescue in Jacksonville….run by a good friend, Jackie. I figured Jackie could use the food more than me and thought why not spread some of the wealth. One of the prizes was 2 meletonin implants, which I could have used for Lielah, and another was the syringe and needles used to insert the meletonin….lol, I won the syringe but not the meletonin….. I asked Patti if Jackie could use them but she said Jackie was too afraid to do it herself……it is a BIG needle and requires local anesthesia. Maybe my vet will give a discount or I can find another shelter that could use them. I tried to find the person who won the meletonin, but they had already left it seemed. In all it was a great time only saddened by the news of Renee Downs and the loss of Gandalf. Renee was on her way to the forum when the accident happened. I was so hoping to meet her and the news brought tears to my eyes and reminded us all once again that life is precious. It was strange not getting up Saturday morning to the chores of cleaning 7 litterboxes, cleaning and disinfecting the cages, doing the ferret laundry and administering meds…..even stranger was not waking up to give morning kisses to the fuzzbutts. I was gone a little over 24 hours and missed my babies like you wouldn’t believe. When I got home…..I found my kids missed me as much as I missed them. My kids were all over me when I sat on the floor in their play areas. I was showered with kisses, groomed and Liberty did he war dance for me…… coming up and placing a paw on my knew and off dancing again…… just like she did when we first met. And of course I bought some toys for them!