Nyssa is an extremely affectionate ferret who gives lots of ferret kisses to me, but is sometimes skittish around strangers. She's really affectionate with Keith too, but she used to hate him, and it took a year and a half of our best efforts for her to stop biting him, and biting hard. Now she gives him lots of kisses, and you'd think she's always loved him the way she acts. Nyssa is playful and energetic, and has no problem wrestling with her bigger brothers. Her favorite things are the FerreTrail Funnels, multicolored see-through plastic tunnels and balls that our ferrets run and play in, and sometimes wrestle in. We have a large set in the living room (which you can see part of on my main fuzzy page), and we also had a little loop of them suspended from the top of the huge cage where all our ferts live. That went away when Diane Campbell, the owner of The Ferret Guardian Rescue Haven, made us this incredibly huge hammock that takes up the whole top of our large cage. It was a thank you for working on the shelter web site, and neither I nor the ferrets can thank her enough. Anyway, Nyssa used to sleep in the those tunnels at the top of the cage, folded in half, but nowadays she's always in the hammock with lots of her brothers and sisters.

Nyssa was also the first fert we had that figured out the litter pan on day one and has used it (well, at least most of the time) ever since. Litter training the others has been a chore, but she got it down right away, which made life so much easier. What's totally amazing is that she didn't even have a litter pan in that awful place we got her from.

In some ways, Nyssa is our mystery ferret. She came from that dingy, dirty, little pet store I mentioned on my main fuzzy page, together with Lady Ayeka, but of the four ferrets we "rescued" from that horrible place, she's the only one who is not a Marshall Farms ferret. In fact, she has no markings at all. We're fairly sure she was bred by Animals Exotique, back when they still were breeding ferrets, but we will never really be sure.

None of this matters, really, since Keith and I both love her anyway. You see, she had to live in my bedroom for a little while, separately from the others, and I kind of bonded with her, and she with me. You see, Nyssa gave us a really big scare...

We use old towels for bedding, and for some strange reason Nyssa decided they were tasty and started eating them. Adric did the same thing as a little kit and threw up, decided this was a really bad idea, and stopped. She didn't do so well. She eneded up with an intestinal blockage as a maybe four month old kit, and her weight dropped down to 522 grams (just over a pound.) She was really just a bag of bones, had no energy, wouldn't eat, hardly pooped, and seemed to be on the point of collapse. We rushed her to the animal emergency hospital late one night, and she was put on antibiotics.

I had to keep her apart from the others, with no towels, of course. She slept in our travel cage, and I let her wander around my room, since she is well litter trained. We were told by the vet to feed her anything at all she would eat, and at first that was just some of her favorite treats and some FerretVite. She was really out of sorts and in a lot of pain, and Summer, my roommate at the time, made the mistake of letting Nyssa up near her face. Normally, for Nyssa, that would be an opportunity to show her love and give Summer a face washing. She was in too much pain for that. She bit Summer severely on the chin, and clamped down hard. When Summer did pry her off, she bit Summer's finger too. We learned the hard way what it means when an animal is really hurting.

Summer left her to me for a little bit, but not for long. We rushed her to the vet the next morning, and he made it clear that she must have really been uncomfortable, and neither Summer nor I could blame her too much. That next day she was kept at the vet's for the day, x-rays still showed foreign matter in her, but she did start to poop again, thankfully. By the end of the day she was eating a little of her regular food, softened with water and mashed, and in a few days she was eating well again and back with the other ferrets. I showed her lots of love and individual attention through all of this, and was working from home at the time, so I could really be with her, and that's why we bonded so closely, I think. Everyone at TriFL (Triangle Ferret Lovers), the local ferret lovers club, was totally supportive during this rough time, and we really appreciated it.

Anyway, within 10 days, her weight was 824 grams and she was happier and friskier than ever, and totally affectionate again to both Summer and me. She has more energy than ever, and eats like there's no tomorrow, and is about the perfect little fuzzy again.

I think what makes Nyssa so lovable is that she has the perfect mix of playfulness and cuddliness, and she shows her love so willingly once she gets to know you. She also gave me a small sample of what being a Mom might be like, with the bad times as well as the good, and that makes her all the more special to me.

-Last updated May 24, 2000

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