Here Come the Rodeo Clowns!
by Todd Leuthold
Hi! My name is Todd and 11 wonderful little ferrets and one cat own me. These furry little critters have come to live with me through various and sundry means. I plan on telling you a bit about each of them in my various articles. My first story will be about my cat, Puffy, and how he’s come to live with all these little they-look-like-food-but-they-are-terrorists critters, also known as ferrets.
I got Puffy when he was a tiny kitten, barely weaned from his mother. He is all black, except for a tiny pencil-spot of white on his chest. I had gotten Puffy to be a companion to my other cat, Kitty, since he had become an inside-only cat. Kitty had gotten into a fight with a cat outside and a small wound became a major infection. The vet cured the infection, but Kitty was no longer allowed outdoors. He needed someone to keep him company while I was at work all day
Right from the beginning, I could tell that Puffy had not just fallen off the turnip truck that morning! Puffy was one cool cat. He knew how to get food away from Kitty (Kitty weighed about 18 pounds…most of it muscle, the rest of it hair), how to sneak Barbie dolls out of my daughter’s toy box without her noticing and the best time of day to scare birds from the back window. He also figured out which places were not to be traveled on by cats (the kitchen counter, the television, the computer desk, etc.) all by himself.
One day, Kitty was gone. He was 14 years old and just didn’t have much left. I firmly believe that the infection had something to do with it, but even that had been several years earlier. Puffy was alone. Like he cared!
Puffy became an outdoor cat when he learned how to open the window in the laundry room and open the screen. He came home before I did, so I didn’t notice anything strange. Until the day I came home early and Puffy was in the back yard, having a crow for lunch. He looked up at me staring at him out the back window. “Tastes like chicken! Want some?” he seemed to say. “And just where did you get a chicken?” I thought back at him.
He does come home on a regular basis. Sometimes he’s there all day and prowls at night, sometimes he’s out all day and sleeps inside at night. He’s fixed, so I know he isn’t being an irresponsible daddy. He primarily eats at home (by the volume of food he eats, I can’t imagine he gets much outside, but he is a big cat) and gets his shots regularly—he forgets all of that macho stuff when he goes to the vet!
Puffy was introduced to ferrets about three years ago when I got Mysti-Ferret. Mysti-Ferret needed to have someone make her a gun belt with a holster and a .45 caliber pistol in it. She used to walk up to the object of her attention, spread her legs and take a gunfighter’s stance, just daring you to challenge her!
Puffy, being no slouch, weighing in at 14 pounds (just about all of it muscle), in the far corner, wearing the blue trunks, would have none of this. He has a funny habit of waving just the tip of his tail, signaling that he is about to attack.
Meanwhile, Mysti-Ferret was busy cocking her little cowboy hat at a rakish angle and slowly flipping a 20-kibble coin in the air. Just off-camera, someone was whistling, someone else was playing a trumpet with a “wa-wa” bowl and yet a third person was picking a steel-stringed guitar. Somewhere, a horse whinnied.
Puffy draws first and swats at Mysti-Ferret, connecting with the left side of her head. Mysti-Ferret just stands there for a moment, and then moves in for the attack. Puffy just stands there, dumbstruck. Why on earth would something the size of a large mouse, attack a cat???
Mysti-Ferret grabs a mouthful of fur on Puffy’s chest and yanks. Puffy screams in surprise! He tries to back up, but this crazy female has a good hold and won’t let go. He turns to run, but dragging this furry thing is more than he bargained for, so he cries to me, pleading for help.
Feeling sorry for the big, bully cat, I got Mysti-Ferret by the scruff
and got her to let go. Puffy hid under my daughter’s bed for the rest
of the evening. Barbie dolls were blocking the entrance, just in case that
ferret could climb the Plexiglas barrier. He didn’t come out until
the next morning. I think his ego was a bit bruised by that incident. This
was the response of a cat that can go from zero to bird in under sixty seconds.
He can snatch bats out of mid-air. He whaps cats clear into the next calendar
month. Beaten by a shrimpy, furry little critter that smells like corn chips
and weighs only one pound.
Mysti-Ferret raids the cat’s food dish.
Several months later, Fuzzer was added to the fray. Oh no—two of them. And they coordinate their attacks! What’s a cat to do??? He can jump up on things. Fuzzer is still a little guy and can’t climb or descend stairs yet, so he can be outrun. Mysti-Ferret isn’t restricted by those problems—and she FAST! Fuzzer lies in ambush when Puffy comes back downstairs. Attack! That ferret acts just like a cat!
Over the years, the number of ferrets in the house has grown to eleven. Needless to say, adjusting to ferrets has given Puffy no small number of gray hairs! Over the years, he has found that, with a little perseverance, he can survive. Even though Hershey likes to occasionally jump on his back and ride him like a bronco at a rodeo, things aren’t all that bad. He now has his food dish on top of the washing machine in a room where the ferrets aren’t allowed (cats can jump over barriers—ferrets can’t!) He can sleep in the two bedrooms where ferrets aren’t allowed to roam. He can also go outside, where no ferrets run free!
To be completely honest, I don’t think that Puffy really dislikes the ferrets. If there are ferrets out-and-about, but they are all sleeping, he’ll hunt one down and wake it up, so it will chase him around the house. He obviously enjoys the attention. When he’s had enough, he jumps a barrier, and then sits on the other side, taunting the ferrets.
Puffy also likes to be in the same room that I am in, when I’m home. This can be a problem if there are ferrets roaming around (when the ferrets are sleeping, there’s no problem). He can’t lie on a chair, or the couch, or anywhere else in the living room, where the ferrets can’t get to him. This results in him having to wake up and move several times during the evening, as the ferrets notice him and include him in their games.
At first, Puffy would wait for the ferrets to come out of their cages, and then he would go in one of the cages, put it in ‘park’ and go to sleep. The ferrets caught him in the act one day and gave him a very hard time about it! Ferrets went flying. Cat was screaming. Sleep sacks were everywhere. Puffy doesn’t sleep in the ferret cages anymore.
Some of the ferrets make it a point to terrorize the poor cat, not backing down when he swats them, or screams at them. Others get swatted once and lose all interest. Puffy does play with the ferrets from time to time. They will tunnel underneath a carpet runner and Puffy will sit on top of it, whapping them when they come out. He also waits at the far end of a tube when they are playing inside and hiss at them when they get to the other end. Sometimes he sits on the coffee table and dangles his tail over the side, wiggling it back and forth for the ferrets to play with.
Puffy has also been known to steal a snack from one of the ferrets, if they aren’t paying enough attention to it. He loves Bandits Ferret Treats, too! If a ferret bites off a piece of ferret snack and the rest hits the floor, the rules say it has been transformed into a cat snack!
Puffy has one more trick up his…uh…er…”sleeve”—if he can find a ferret sleeping out in the open (hey…it happens!), I have actually seen him pick that unfortunate ferret up by the scruff and relocate it to a place of his choosing! Ferret fell asleep under a chair, wakes up in the kitchen in a litter box. “Hey! What? Who? Huh?” The expressions are priceless! I think the cat has a plan.
The ferrets have done a few things to the cat, too. For instance, I bought the cat a fleece cat bed. He likes to sleep in shoe boxes (he’s like three times too big to fit in them, but does so anyway), so I got him the bed so he could have a regular place to sleep. He slept in it just fine. Until the ferrets stole it! They got it up on its side, and then rolled it behind the stereo speakers!
I put it upstairs for him. He was asleep in it one day, when Taz took a liking to it. Taz dragged the cat bet, cat and all, into his own bedroom, then climbed in and stared at the cat until the cat woke up. He then chased the cat out of the bed (Puffy tried to fight, but it was all in vain!) and took it over for himself. Hey, ferrets rule, cat’s drool. It’s in the book—look it up!