The story of a shelter ferret

I was at Ferrets Unlimited recently and met Ivy, who had just been surrendered by her owners.

Her story was so poignant that I decided to share it here.

Ivy is a tiny female ferret, not more than 1 pound.

Her owners decided that they could no longer keep her.  Why?  I don't know.  There's always some excuse, and frankly it doesn't matter to the ferrets.  What they know is that their family is suddenly gone, and they are in a strange place with strange smells and sounds, and lots of strange ferrets.

Ivy's oh-so-caring family put her cage in the trunk of their car.  Of course, the trunk couldn't close with the cage in there, so they just drove it like that, with the trunk lid slamming on the cage ALL THE WAY ACRLSS TOWN!!

When I met Ivy the next day, she was still so frightened that she would just grab on to you when you picked her up.  She never wanted to let go.

I held her for a couple of hours, and the entire time she held on with all her tiny might, all 4 paws gripping my shirt or arm, whatever she could get ahold of.  Eventually she relaxed enough to climb up and bury her head in the collar of my shirt.

Unfortunately, I couldn't take Ivy home with me because I had to fly back to the west coast.  But you could...