Da Boyz The Tag Team The Terror Twins

Lindy and Fey are brothers, "sable" ferrets born on February 3, 1997 in Pennsylvania. At the tender age of 6 weeks, they found themselves flying into Orlando International Airport and driving the 45 minutes from there to their new home.

Lindy (the darker of the two, at left in the photo above) named himself the very first evening. His new "mom" was cautiously herding him away from the edges of the sofa as he was busily exploring. His new "dad" said, "It's OK, let him poke around, they seem to understand edges and don't get too close." So, new ferret mom let him get a bit further away, and the next thing she saw was the little six week old creature LEAPING from the arm of the sofa and dropping to the floor, three feet down.

So, Lindy is our flying ferret, lucky that he only managed to frighten himself (and his humans).

His brother's name was more of a problem; because he's just a tiny bit less wild, for a time he was known as "The Good Ferret". "Fey" is the most recent name, and will probably be permanent. That's him chewing on his brother in the photo at left.

Ferrets, at least young ferrets, seem to have only two speeds: OFF, where they sleep like the dead, totally limp if you happen to pick one up; and ON. Their enthusiasm in ON mode is boundless...they leap at each other, burrow into shoes, wrestle each other, drag slippers and other small objects into hiding places, dance a strange little "war dance", and run across the floor with a rockinghorse gait. Their curiosity knows no bounds. They can run sideways nearly as fast as they can run straight ahead.

They totally terrified the cats at first, but Omar (RB) was the first to recognize their potential. One night about four weeks after their arrival, one ferret was playing in the Mega Pile O' Shoes in the bedroom and his brother was busy dragging a magazine across the floor in the living room near the humans of the house.

Omar appeared in the door from the bedroom hallway, walking with a casual and relaxed air towards us. As he took the turn, we could see that the ferret from the bedroom accompanied him, walking close to his side, matching his gait in an almost perfect "heel" position. As they drew closer, the magazine lost its appeal and ferret #2 trotted over and joined his brother. All three then turned and sauntered away towards the kitchen.

"Oh, look" said "dad", "Omar has pets!"

Most of their day is spent napping in their large home base, their cage. When they're awake, though, and someone is around to supervise, they are allowed to roam. Da Boyz are then very busy learning how to wreak the maximum amount of havoc in the house, while we humans struggle to keep one step ahead of them and eliminate any risks to their safety. They discovered fairly early on that they could climb the curtains and reach the top of the computer desk. Once there, they enjoy spilling the pencils, floppy disks and papers to the floor, and stealing the small stuffed animals that clutter the area. You can almost hear them chortling with ferret glee, one running off in one direction with a beanie baby in his mouth, his brother dashing away in another direction with a bottle of White Out.

Now nearly one, Da Boyz and cats have worked out co-habitation fairly well. Norville and Mietze contrive to always be out of reach...only hapless Neko finds herself a victim on occasion.

Their latest thing is to play "stalker"...Neko is quietly sitting somewhere and one of Da Boyz sits a foot or two away and stares at her, beady little eyes unblinking. Neko takes it as long as she can until finally she just *has* to make a break for it...with varied success.

Why she doesn't head for high places (the top of the cabinets, TV, etc.), as Mietze and Norville always do, is a mystery, but she usually bolts for the cat door that leads to the breezeway, trailing at least one ferret in her wake.

Unfortunately for Neko, locking the cat door is on the list of things to be done every time Da Boyz are taken out of their cage. So the "stare at the cat until she freaks out" game is simply moved to the kitchen, as Neko whines.

The addition of Boo, when Lindy and Fey were nearly one, has had little affect so far. They are aware of her presence, but Boo has her own accommodations and the three are not allowed out all at the same time. Boo's very much smaller and Da Boyz seem to consider her some manner of wonderfully animated toy, to be dragged wherever they please.

Cautiously, Fey and Boo were allowed to play together in the days which followed, and Boo was quite able to handle only one Boy. So, while still occupying separate residences, they share time together when out of their cages.

Occasionally we'd find that they'd put themselves to bed after playtime in each other's cage, but each really seemed to prefer their own little house to the other's.

Come see us, too, please! Mietze Neko Azad Buster Ella Molly Boo! (RB) Return to The Clowder

Omar's Memorial