Welcome and Intros

[Briefly]

This may sound like a joke because of the animal I'm about to ask about, but I am 100% serious!  We are ready for our next pet, our spoiled rotten beagle died of old age and related issues at the end of July.  We have thought about a cat but decided against one and don't want another dog right now.  We are seriously thinking about ferrets.  I've done a lot of research and talked to someone at a local store (not a pet store, they don't support mills) and got a lot of information.  But, I would like to hear any other's experiences with ferrets. We would most likely get 2, since I think they need companions.  Anybody have any advice?

[WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo?]

@Briefly, my only experience with ferrets was while working at a vet clinic. My main impression was that they are very active pets, who thrive when they get lots of attention from their people and have a stimulating environment. (The owner and environment bits apply to almost all pets, I suppose.) My minor impressions are that ferrets are hard to hold still, because they are squirmy and all neck, and that they still have a faint musky smell even if they've had their scent glands removed. 

I'm sure we have a few ferret loving people on FJ. If no one else replies here, maybe a status update with a link to here would get more replies? 

Happy pet choosing!    

[Briefly]

18 hours ago, WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo? said:

@Briefly, my only experience with ferrets was while working at a vet clinic. My main impression was that they are very active pets, who thrive when they get lots of attention from their people and have a stimulating environment. (The owner and environment bits apply to almost all pets, I suppose.) My minor impressions are that ferrets are hard to hold still, because they are squirmy and all neck, and that they still have a faint musky smell even if they've had their scent glands removed. 

I'm sure we have a few ferret loving people on FJ. If no one else replies here, maybe a status update with a link to here would get more replies? 

Happy pet choosing!    

Thank you!  We are planning on getting two so that they will have a buddy, they will be caged part of the day but out to play and be played with for quite a while as well, I work during the day but Mr. Briefly works from home.  I have been around them a bit (they remind me of perpetual kittens) and I don't find their scent to be offensive, it reminds me of a cat's scent in a way.  We are going to look into cages in the next couple of weeks, we want to get one that is big enough for them to grow and also will have a couple of levels.  But it also has to fit through a door, since the main room the cage will be in is also my craft room/guest room.  I spend a lot of time in that room with my crochet and crafts, and I'm sure that they will be out and being played with then as well.  I have always liked them but Mr. Briefly has always wanted them.  They are going to be spoiled and loved, I've been doing the research as far as general care and feeding.  We are thinking we might not get the actual animals until a few months from now, maybe spring or thereabouts.

[Briefly]

In the last few days, we have decided that ferrets might not be the best animal for us.  Mr. Briefly honestly thought that they were cage animals - in other words that they are content to stay in a cage most of the time such as a pet mouse, but now that I've explained all that I've learned about them to him, he agrees that we might need to think about something else.  So I think we are back to most likely a cat as our next pet.  We've had cats before.

[Kailash]

@Briefly Our humane society often has rabbits, rats, gerbils and more, in addition to cats and dogs. Just throwing that out there if you wanted to look.

[Briefly]

16 hours ago, Kailash said:

@Briefly Our humane society often has rabbits, rats, gerbils and more, in addition to cats and dogs. Just throwing that out there if you wanted to look.

Thanks.  We know we will look for a rescue, most of our pets have been from rescues or strays that we have found.  We've had a variety of animals and I had rabbits, gerbils and tortoises as a kid.

[Briefly]

I hate to be indecisive.  It drives me nuts.  But I have been extremely indecisive about our next pet.  We finally settled on a cat.  Then we babysat our grandcat when our daughter went out of town a couple of weeks ago.  And I realized that I am very probably allergic to cats.  It was not a happy discovery!  I did some more research and discovered that if you are allergic to cats, you are probably allergic to weasels (which includes ferrets) as well.  Which made me realize that I did have some allergy issues when I was playing with ferrets at the pet store and talking to the small animal person.

So, process of elimination:  I think we are getting guinea pigs.

[Scrabblemaster]

I want to give an update on our hamster-lady. Although her cage is large, we had no choice against her little eyes and gave in. So for now she has an extra space around her cage(which is always open) where she can walk around during the night without getting killed from us. In total she has 3 squaremeters for herself. In addition we let her out every night so that she can walk around in the bedroom and the corridor for at least one hour. Nearly every evening she stands at the "gate" from her extra-space and waits for us to open it. And she has a huge cardboard-box with hay/straw litter in which she digs regularly. Her favourite food is cucumber, broccoli, living maggots* and dried-seed-mixture. From time to time a hazelnut. We can feed her and she touches our hand and sniffs on them, but she never walks on our hands. She prefers her hamster-taxi (dvd boxes, books, tupperware lids...) for rescue, when she climbed on some furniture. We love her very very much and hope she will live very very long. 

* Mr. S. gets them out of the little container, that sits in the fridge. I can't take them out of the container, but I can feed them to her.  

 

[AtTara]

Hi everyone!  I'm a newbie and saw the pet group was open, so I joined   I have four dogs (a "chug", a "chiweenie" and two longhaired chihuahua puppies -- now 8 months old), 2 cats, 8 snakes, and an EXTREMELY disapproving sulcata tortoise, who rules our back yard with a vengeance.

Here's a link to Sam the Sucata Tortoise's page :)

And here's a link to my tiny terrors' YouTube channel :) (which includes a video of the babies being gravely offended by Sam's existence, and Sam utterly not giving a shit).

[Palimpsest]

Hi  @AtTara, and .

I'm afraid the Pets Club isn't very active.  I really should try to do something about that because I am supposed to be in charge of it.

We have many pet lovers here.  Cats are very popular, and our owner @Curious has chihuahuas.  

I'm a dog fanatic, but I love most furry and feathered critters.  I'm almost over my snake phobia so please do post pictures of your slithery pets.  I've already warned people that I am not keen on eight legged pets, but they are welcome too.

And I just fell completely in love with Sam and the puppies. Adorable!

But, gentle warning, if that is your real name on that youtube channel  perhaps you might want to edit the link above.

 

[AtTara]

9 minutes ago, Palimpsest said:

Hi  @AtTara, and .

I'm afraid the Pets Club isn't very active.  I really should try to do something about that because I am supposed to be in charge of it.

We have many pet lovers here.  Cats are very popular, and our owner @Curious has chihuahuas.  

I'm a dog fanatic, but I love most furry and feathered critters.  I'm almost over my snake phobia so please do post pictures of your slithery pets.  I've already warned people that I am not keen on eight legged pets, but they are welcome too.

And I just fell completely in love with Sam and the puppies. Adorable!

But, gentle warning, if that is your real name on that youtube channel  perhaps you might want to edit the link above.

 

Thanks!  And thankfully, that's not my actual real name   The first is, but the last is tied to a few older blogs I have.  I've kept it that way because I have a seriously difficult ex-husband, and although I'm certain he could track me down on the internet, I like to make it a bit hard on him.  Bless his heart.

Snakes can be seen at this link :)

[Curious]

4 hours ago, AtTara said:

Hi everyone!  I'm a newbie and saw the pet group was open, so I joined   I have four dogs (a "chug", a "chiweenie" and two longhaired chihuahua puppies -- now 8 months old), 2 cats, 8 snakes, and an EXTREMELY disapproving sulcata tortoise, who rules our back yard with a vengeance.

Here's a link to Sam the Sucata Tortoise's page :)

And here's a link to my tiny terrors' YouTube channel :) (which includes a video of the babies being gravely offended by Sam's existence, and Sam utterly not giving a shit).

Welcome!

I have a friend that has 2 Sulcata tortoises.  He got one as a baby about the size of a golf ball and he somehow inherited one that was going to be abandoned who is much larger.  I'm fascinated by them.

I LOVE the video with the chihuahua babies.   I want a chi baby SO badly, but we just added 2 no longer feral kittens that my husband found in our yard so I have to wait.  There are pics of my girls around the site here.   If you search for Tequila or Teq that should bring up some of them pretty easily.

[AtTara]

I found them -- they're darling!

I can tell you, one thing I'll never do again is have two puppies at once.  I don't regret it and would dearly miss either one of my little guys, but it's like 5x more work than just one puppy.  My hair is going even greyer with every passing minute with them LOL

They're too stinking cute, though

[Curious]

15 hours ago, AtTara said:

I found them -- they're darling!

I can tell you, one thing I'll never do again is have two puppies at once.  I don't regret it and would dearly miss either one of my little guys, but it's like 5x more work than just one puppy.  My hair is going even greyer with every passing minute with them LOL

They're too stinking cute, though

We have had 2 kittens before so knew what to expect.  Had I picked the time to add a kitten I probably would have done a single, but when feral kitties drop from the sky you don't question it

I can't imagine 2 chi puppies at once.   Our 3 are all full sisters from 3 different litters.   One at a time took years off my life so I can't imagine what 2 would do.   We had 10 dogs at one point when we were doing rescue and I don't think that was as much work as 1 tiny puppy.

They are so adorable and chis stay young forever.  You'd never know Teq is going to be 8 in December, except she is turning grey.  I keep telling her grey hair is not allowed, but she doesn't listen!  She still plays with toys and loves her "walkies"

[AtTara]

15 minutes ago, Curious said:

I can't imagine 2 chi puppies at once.   Our 3 are all full sisters from 3 different litters.   One at a time took years off my life so I can't imagine what 2 would do.  

Yeah... I thought I could.  Turns out, even my most insane expectations were exceeded!   Littermate Syndrome is totally a thing, and since we're waiting until they're a year old to have them neutered, due to one of their moleras not quite being closed, it's... been real.  That said, I signed on and I'm good with it, but never, EVER again.

Most of the time they're sweet with each other (and with our older cat, who is the Best Daddy Ever), but they get a bit cranky when it's food and treat time, which means I end up handfeeding one or the other (or sometimes both).

I will survive this.  And they will too, and they will come out being amazing, well-socialized, well-trained babies.

[Curious]

Tequila has been very food aggressive since she was about 12 weeks old.   One of the adults got past me and stole food out of her dish and she was just aghast that had happened.  From that point on, she would guard her food like no one's business.   She is fed gated in the bedroom because if she even suspects another animal is thinking about her food she will snap and snarl and won't actually eat

Once when she was about 6 months old my husband was out of town so I had to feed the dogs.  I'm disabled and walking isn't easy for me so stupidly I thought taking her out in the other room with me would make it easier than having to trek up and down the hallway several times trying to get everyone fed.  We had 5 papillons and her at that point.

I got the raw chicken wings out and thought I'll just quickly feed these guys (3 adults and Teq) and then get the other 2 and I can survive this.   Not even thinking I put Kendall's wing down for her and Teq saw it and went crazy.  I had 2 dogs behind a gate and then the 3 adults and Teq on the other side with me.   She herded Kendall away from the wing and over by the gate where the other 2 were barking like mad now.  Then she saw Turner coming out of the kitchen and try to get in his crate which was like 10-15 feet away from the wing.  She ran over and herded him back into the kitchen.

She just kept going back and forth between them anytime one of them would take a step.  Meanwhile, our old guy was sleeping in the middle of the floor, totally oblivious while the others ran all around him in fear from a snarling 3 pound puppy.

I finally managed to grab Teq and throw her in one of the other dog's crates with a wing.  Turner darted from the kitchen into his crate which was right next to the crate I toss Teq in, of course.  She started throwing herself against the side of the crate because now there was a dog next to her precious food.

I had to sit with Kendall so she would eat at all she was so freaked out.

When my husband is gone now we don't feed wings and I just hand feed the 4 of them working on sits, shakes, downs etc so they view it as training vs a meal.   For some reason, Teq is less hostile if they are all getting treats, but if someone drops their bite she will shank a bitch

ETA: Other than when food is involved Teq has the softest mouth of any dog I have ever owned.  She can't even get toys to squeak because she can't bite them hard enough.  She has never tried to bite us or anyone else and she totally loves both adults and children.   She will happily sit nicely and take treats very gently from toddlers.   Her tail never stops wagging and she's really just the best little dog.

Today she found one of the kittens silvervine sticks that they had been playing with and it fell out of their pen.  She tried to kill Daiqy when she innocently walked by because she might steal her STICK!   She's good, but not always bright  

Edited August 28, 2019 by Curious
more thoughts

[Scrabblemaster]

Dammit. A couple of weeks ago our hamster had mites. We saw that she had a spot without fur and went to the vet the next day. They made a test, found one mite and gave her one drop of anti-mite-creme. I cleaned the cage, I baked everything I could in the oven, I changed the litter, I very much desinfected every spot she had contact with. It was a PITA of six hours with a very much pissed hamster afterwards because nothing smelled like her. we had to go back to the vet twice every three weeks for her dose of anti-mite-drop and it worked well. The fur grew back and she stopped scratching. Last friday we saw that she has a bald spot again, at nearly the same area. And she started scratching again. I made an appointment at the vet for Thursday, it was the best I could get because I want our Dr. from the last appointments so that she knows what the fur looked last time. Beside the bald spot and the scratching the hamster acts pretty normal. She eats, drinks and demands her go-for-a-walk through the bedroom as if nothing happened. I am worried. I am kind of scared. I am helpless. And I am a little bit pissed if the mites came back, because it would mean I fucked up the cleaning. Or bought new mites with the new food I ordered. Damn!

[Scrabblemaster]

Update on the hamster lady. The vet thinks it's a hormonal problem, it could be ovarial cysts. She might have these nearly parallel furless spots because the cysts hurt her and she touches these spots with her claws. Ovaries and utero are in the same are as her furless spots are. So the explanation makes sense. There were no mites spotted, I would have preferred the mites. She gets a daily medicine for the next two weeks. We'll have to see. She is as fearless as ever, eats and drinks as normal and hates the medicine like any hamster would. I mix the medicine with her favorite "snack-porridge", yesterday she ignored her snack so I assume she saw through it. 

[EmainMacha]

@Scrabblemaster how is your hamster doing? Ovarian cysts are quite common in dwarf hamsters particularly I believe. Is your wee one a dwarf?

I lost my winter white dwarf hamster and 2 gerbils in quick succession over the past month. They were adopted as older animals so not surprising but sad. I adopted a Campbell dwarf hamster and a robo hamster in the past few weeks. And now I'm looking at a rabbit. I think I have an adoption problem. I'm the small animal equivalent of some of our fundies.

[Palimpsest]

1 hour ago, EmainMacha said:

And now I'm looking at a rabbit. I think I have an adoption problem. I'm the small animal equivalent of some of our fundies.

I already answered your rabbit post on your status.   I'm trying to sit on my fingers so I don't tell you to 

Spoiler

Go and Get That Bunny!

And pictures of the hamsters please. 

 

[Scrabblemaster]

@EmainMacha She is way better. The bald spots got some fur back. But we had 1 or 2 weeks where we thought she would die within the next days. She did not come out of her house unless for drinking or going to her toilet and she lost weight. We were very concerned, but there were no other signs of her being sick. We considered going to the vet, but what could she have done? The hamster looked normal, ate and drank enough to not do die and was not acitve. I could not feel any lumps (potential tumors) and beside the weight loss she looked fine. So we decided to wait another day and that's been the point when she started to be more active again. Now she is all cute and normal again. We think that her weight loss and the non-activ-phase could have been a side effect of the medicine against the mites (they gave her one spot on her back last time we were there, just in case there were mites they the vet did not spot, I did not write it in my last post) or the medicine against her cysts. The one against the mites is more likely. 

Spoiler

Are you talking about me?

Edited October 9, 2019 by Scrabblemaster
The hamsterlady wants to say "Hi" too.

[therulesofjinx]

I just joined FJ a few days ago after literal years of lurking...I introduced myself on the "introduce yourself" thread, but wanted to say hi here, too, as I practice my posting skills! I have two female guinea pigs who are being jerks this week....but I still love them! Anyone else have guinea pigs???

[WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo?]

11 hours ago, therulesofjinx said:

Anyone else have guinea pigs??

I believe that @mango_fandango and @pook have piggies, but I can't remember if either of them have ever made their way to this club. Maybe if we all shout their names together, they will hear us!

[therulesofjinx]

Thanks, @WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo?! Mine are just being pretty crabby and I wondered if anyone had any advice ?

[Scrabblemaster]

Our our little hamster-lady died yesterday. She was very ill during her last weeks, she had some kind of tumor/infection combination in her womb or ovaries. We thought she was doing better on medication for some days. We had a check-up appointment at the vet and when we woke her up for that, she could barely walk and was obviously in pain. We could see that she was suffering. I held her when they put her down. We buried her in our garden. Although we knew this was coming, because she was very old, it feels unreal.