Oscar's Story











Updated March 10th 2004

Oscar, a dark polecat ferret, was six months old when he came to Ferret Friends
He had been owned by a teenager who kept him in a cage no bigger then a shoe box.
He was infested with fleas,starving, terribly thin and extremely aggressive.
He had no room to exercise and had to live in his own mess.
Luckily a girl from school felt sorry for himand took the box with the
ferret in it home and her dad phoned us.

Even though he had no muscle tone from lack of exercise, when the cage was opened
by Peter Knight, Oscar leapt at him and bit him on the chest, back at the rescue he was
given food and water and put in a cage. Whenever he saw anyone walk in the garden
he would bite the wire of the cage to get to us, we had to fend him off just to change his food.
He had no reason to trust or like people and we feared for his future.

Then my daughter Heather and i walked into the garden and heard his story. Why we decided
to take the most aggressive ferret we have ever had at the rescue home i do not know.It may
have been the Christmas spirit, Heather said she saw something in his eyes, i missed that one.

It was four days before Christmas day 2001 and we took Oscar home, with dire warnings not to let Heather get near him and lots of "are you sure?" We picked him up when we had our rescue Christmas drink so it was 1am before we got home. We put Oscar in his indoor cage and went to bed In the morning, i found him asleep up one end of the 4ft cage, with his food and mess, as if he was in the small cage, although later we did get him clean and to use his entire cage and be a house ferret.

Round one! flea spray, it was like spraying a crocodile with toothache. He gave me a large cut on my hand, first blood to Oscar, but after eight weeks of concentrated handling and TLC, it was over to Heather for kissing and cuddling and the transformation was complete from psycho to softy.

Or as everyone at the rescue called it, the Christmas miracle.

Oscar has now gone on to become the most cuddled and loved ferret at all the shows we attend, and the only ferret, people ask, if we would sell him, to them. Oscar has a strange power over people, they don't want to pass him back after they have had a cuddle, and return many times in a day to see him. Was it how he always would have been, or was it giving him a kind loving home, after the nightmare he was living, that made the difference, that is something we will never know.

Although in a good home he has had health problems 11months after we took him home he got a liver infection, we thought he would die, he was very ill, but i was determined to make him live and fed him chicken gravy with my fingers, he pulled though. It would have been so unfair to die now he had found a good home, 2004, and Oscar is back at the vets, maybe it was his bad start in life to date we have spent over £600 on vet fees, but have not got to the bottom of Oscars health problems, still you know what they say. Never give up never surrender.