I made the mistake of looking at Washington Ferret Rescue & Shelter's webpage. Very bad choice. After seeing this and this, I broke down. I was *going* to the shelter to get that boy!

Immediately the emails went out the hubby. He responded with "aww" and "ok, go get him". He's so easy!

I sent off an email to the shelter op to let her know that I had fallen in love & to check on Bran's availability. She wrote back to inform me that Bran is a very sweet boy, but that he does not play well with others & must be an only child. I relayed that on to hubby and he said "if it works out, why not?!".

Since there was an open house on Saturday, I hauled the boys (Orion and Kamikaze) with me to the shelter, rationalizing that I was *way* overdue for at least a visit! I figured if Bran could get along with anyone, it would be those two sweet boys.

Anyhow, not only does Brando not "like" other ferrets, but it turns out that he's actually terrified of them. He squeals & lunges at most ferrets that come into his space. If they so much as look back at him, he turns away and tries desperately to disappear into the floor. He's not feeling real well right now, so I'm sure that's adding to his discomfort around other ferrets. :(

After briefly squealing at Orion, he found a place to curl up and go to sleep. He took one look at Kaze on the way & kept right on going. The boys are pretty good about giving each other space, so I figured we could give this a go. Besides, if all else fails he can either return to the shelter or be an only child. It's totally up to him.

I called & discussed things with Geoff, and he decided he'd rather have Sophia and a blaze baby (stories in bios to follow). Sigh. But, you know, I was there.. so I got final veto power!

There was minimal squealing in the car on the ride home.. And there hasn't been a huge amount of interaction between Brando and the other fuzz since. Right now we're focusing mainly on putting some meat on his bones and getting him back to 100%.

We tried letting him out to walk about with the babies (Digger & Fingers) nearby, and he was even scared of them. Right now, they're maybe a quarter of his body size! We're gonna have to go at this even slower than a snail's pace.. :(

He has *much* more silver than I expected, and even has a cool racing stripe on the top of his head. And ya gotta love that black nose!! You'll have to cruise on over to the pictures page to see more pics. I'll definitely get more once he's fattened up a bit.

Poor guy was found walking along the street. He stopped eating at the shelter for a bit, but they managed to get him eating some kitten chow at least. I'm using that, my ferret food & gravy with cream and tone on it to perk up his appetite. At first he thought I was trying to poison him, but this morning he scarfed down half his portion without me having to scruff him. That's definite progress!

I'm now feeding him 3x a day and I've seen him crunch down his kibbles, so I know he's eating. Litter box output looks good as well. I think we might just be in business! :) He's living in the big cage for now, and gets out to wander around when the other fuzz are sleeping. It usually doesn't take long at all for him to get tired, so once that happens I relocate him back to the cage & he goes to sleep.

So that's Bran... Up to the minute.

Almost a whole year has gone by and I've neglected to update Brando's bio..

He passed this week. I found him seizing in a litter box on Sunday night. I was unable to pull him out of the seizure, no matter what I tried.. I even went to another foster mom's house to raid her drug supply. We got the seizures to slow, and basically knocked him out until he could get to the vet Monday morning.

On Monday, after I had fed him & given him his fluids for the morning, I went about my normal routine of getting ready for work. He screamed as another seizure struck, so I gave him some dex and sent him out the door with Geoff to the emergency vet's. Talk about a horrible way to wake up... Sorry Geoff!

A day, several vets and many seizures later, they finally got him stabilized enough that I was able to take him home. Not surprisingly, he just wasn't himself after all that ... but I promised myself that I'd give him a week and see if he might make some major improvements. My decision was made for me when he had yet another massive seizure Weds morning at 2:20am. I took him to the emergency vet's and held him as he finally found some peace.

He had a seizure two weeks prior to all this, and had been on a low dose of pred ever since. Sunday night's seizure was an awful surprise.. He was a good sized ferret with a healthy appetite, and wasn't all that old. Just out of the blue he had a seizure. And then one more..

Brando learned to love the other ferrets and was always found in the middle of a big pile of fur. He was the most mellow lap ferret one could ever meet and I loved that chub of a guy to pieces.

He was always rather timid with the more boistrous ferrets, and I will always remember our trip to Alki. We took Bran and several other shelter ferrets with us out to the beach for an 'adoption day'. A rather anti-social gal, half his size, nailed him right on the top of his head. That sent him squealing under a blanket where he remained for the entire day. That was pretty much the end of his travelin' days.. He was much more content to keep the hammies warm at home.

It's so unfair.. and my heart is heavy this week. Good bye, little one..