Toby, born in December of 1998, passed away on April 30, 2002 at approximately 2pm. She was 3 years old.

Toby was a very lively and scrappy ferret. She loved to wrestle and would tackle any ferret no matter the size. She seemed to always be smaller than the other ferrets and was definitely smaller than the boys (Morrie, Teddy, and Maxwell), but she could hold her own.

As did all of the ferrets, Toby enjoyed playing in our ferret highway, a long clear tube that the ferrets ran through. Since she was so small, she could easily pass the other ferrets in the tube. She also liked to drag ping pong balls or other toys around the room. She would wrap her front paws around the object and walk backwards. She also loved to climb into the round hanging bag. She would push the toy bones out of the bag and then lean out and pull them back in. Sometimes she would lean out of the bag while laying on her back so she looked pretty silly dangling upside down out of the bag.

Toby got along with any ferrets we brought in the house (unlike Nicole). When Walt’s weasels stayed with us, she would dig out their food from outside the cage.

Toby was an amazing escape artist. I did not like closing the door to their room because then we couldn’t interact with them. So I bought a child safety gate to put in the doorway instead. Toby took about 10 seconds to climb the gate using the little holes in the gate. She had problems at the top of the gate because there was smooth plastic there and where the two halves of the gate overlapped, it was a wide area of smooth plastic. Toby quickly figured out that where the two gate halves didn’t overlap, it was a narrow area of smooth plastic. In the narrow portions, Toby could climb to the top and throw her paw over the smooth area and catch the holes below the smooth portion on the other side to escape to the portion of the house that was off-limits! I quickly remedied this problem by putting packing tape along the top portion of the gate where the holes were so that the amount of smooth area was greatly increased. Toby stepped up to the challenge. Again, I noticed her outside of the ferret room and I was dumbstruck. How did she do it? I put her back in the room and sat down to watch. What I saw made me laugh with amazement. The door opened into the room and the child gate was in the doorway about 3 inches from the edge of the open door. Toby got between the child gate (which was covered with packing tape) and the door, and she shimmied up the gate and got out.

Toby was also adept at escaping the ferret cage. Sometimes we would forget to close one of the doors on the ferret cage. Toby would push the door open, somehow get out of the door and hold onto the edge of the cage, and climb backwards down the side of the cage. When she reached the plastic container at the bottom of the cage, she would drop to the floor. We began carefully checking the doors when we put them away at night. One day, we noticed Toby out of the cage despite our efforts to double-check the doors. We were sure we had forgotten to close a door again. But it happened more and more often and we knew we weren’t that forgetful. One day we put the ferrets away, but stayed in the ferret room to do something. The ferrets were indignant that we didn’t allow them out too. Then we noticed Toby climbing down the side of the cage. We accused each other of leaving a door open, but when we checked the cage, none of the doors were open! How did she do it? We put her back in the cage to watch. And she did not hesitate to share her secret method. Each of the 2 sections of the cage had a top and bottom rungs that left a wider opening than any of the other openings between the bars. Toby squeezed herself through this opening, flattening herself to epic proportions. Her head actually looked distorted to get through the opening. It turned out to be a defect in the design and the manufacturer actually sent us a new cage, but Toby could still squeeze through the openings between the bars at these specific points. We ended up cutting pieces of cardboard and using plastic ties to secure the cardboard to the cage.

Toby loved to climb. She would climb up the side of the cage when we were cleaning it. She would also climb other cages if we were ferret sitting for Walt’s weasels. She often would try to climb up your leg inside your pants. If you were wearing sweats, her claws gave her enough leverage to actually climb up your leg and shirt to your shoulders.

Toby was very friendly with people. When our son, Nicholas was born, we would let Toby sniff Nick up close because we could trust that she wouldn’t bite him. Sometime in the spring of 2002, Toby started getting wider around her abdomen and sleeping a lot. She wasn’t as active as she used to be even though she was still eating and going to the bathroom. On April 29, I took her to the vet. Dr. Baillee took x-rays and noticed that her stomach was enlarged. We hoped it was just a stomach blockage that could easily be removed in surgery so he scheduled Toby for surgery the next day. I left Toby at the vet overnight to get additional blood work. The next day, she went into surgery around 1pm. Around 2pm, David got a call from the vet that he had found tumors that indicated advanced liver cancer. The vet recommended that we not let Toby wake up from surgery. Dave called me at work and discussed the options. I called the vet immediately, and after hearing that Toby probably wouldn’t live through the experience of coming out of the anesthesia, I agreed that Toby should go peacefully now rather than risk any suffering. After work, Dave and I met at the vet’s office to say our good byes to our dear Toby. She looked so peaceful lying on the towels, that it seemed like she could wake up at any moment. But she didn’t. I stroked her head and upper body as the tears flowed. After talking with the vet, we found out that they did not have to prevent Toby from waking up as she died in the technician’s arms before the anesthesia wore off moments after I called. She apparently had adrenal gland disease as well as liver cancer.

I am so sad that I did not get to say good bye to Toby and that I was not there in her final moments so that she could feel loved and secure as her life slipped away from her. I wish we had brought her home with us after her Monday appointment before her surgery the next day like I usually would have insisted. But I was too preoccupied with Nicholas and didn’t think she would actually die. I thought there might be a more serious problem, but I figured that we would bring her home if she was sick and let her die peacefully in the comfort of her home with her loving companions (which includes 5 other ferrets, 3 cats, and 3 people).