At our last meeting, Chris was apologizing for the state of her house.
"I didn't have time to clean today. I had to go to Salem and get this poor guy."
She was holding a little white ferret, wrapped in a towel, in her arms.
Chris told us that Animal Control found him in an apartment. The owners had moved out and left him behind. His cage was filthy, and he was covered in his own feces. He was skin and bones. It was a miracle that he lived long enough for her to go get him.
The worst thing?
"After I gave him a bath, I saw this."
She opened the towel, and there was a golf-ball sized tumor on his abdomen. It was right behind his penis. His skin was red and bleeding, and it looked infected (which wouldn't be surprising, considering his cage conditions).
"He needs a name."
"How about Arnie?" I said.
"Why Arnie?"
"Cause that's a tooomah," I said.
The little white ferret squinted his approval. And so he was named Arnie.
Little Arnie was paraded and passed around the room and given many many cuddles and pets. He loved all the attention. He was very sweet and gentle, in spite of the horrible treatment he had been given and the obviously painful tumor.
"This is where your raffle dollars are going tonight, "Chris told us. "All the money we earn from the raffle goes to his surgery tomorrow."
So we dug deeeeep.
"He's going in tomorrow, whether we have enough money or not," Chris said. "Well, if he makes it through the night."
We spent the whole evening cherishing this one ferret. It was terrible to think that his owners had just left him behind. We wondered if they knew he had a tumor and were just waiting for him to die, or if they had just not cared enough to notice. We wondered a lot of things.
Sadly, Arnie did not make it through the night. He went septic, and they could not save him.
But at least he got to have one night where he was the center of attention, loved on, held, and cherished. At least he didn't have to die alone.
