Mr. Grover

We said goodnight to our very special old friend tonight. Grover was the sweetest, most gentle creature I have ever encountered. He was a single guy, but he took care of Bubbles and Betty in their last days and he nurtured a baby kitten that we brought home, as if it was his own baby. I will never forget the way he smelled like French toast and loved to put all the toys away. I will miss him forever.

This is his story.

Mr. Grover came to live with us in December of 2002. We had been volunteering at the ferret shelter which is across town. Since we have no shelter on this side of town, but we have several pet stores that sell baby ferrets, I assumed that there would be a need for help transporting or fostering ferrets surrendered on the east side. Almost as soon as we offered to do this, we received a call to pick up two ferrets from a young man who could not keep them any longer. Lance went to pick them up and found two very skinny and sickly looking ferrets in a cardboard box. They had no toys, no blankets and they were being fed horrible food full of fruit.

Lance brought them home and told me their names were Charlie (a female) and Darwin (a male). The names did not suit them at all. They were so sweet and friendly. Lance wanted to keep them immediately; so much for being foster parents. We named them Grover and Bubbles. Miss Bubbles was our immediate concern because she was emaciated and bald and showed signs of advanced insulinoma. Grover was also thin with a coarse thin coat and was very dirty. We gave them lots of love and care and they quickly became a part of our family.

Miss Bubbles improved for a while, but she was too far gone. She left us February 12, 2003. We were devastated as this was our first loss of a ferret. We gave her so much attention and hand feeding, that it was a huge emptiness when she was gone.

We worried about Grover because Bubbles was his only animal friend. He did not like our other younger ferrets and seemed to take care of Bubbles. He snuggled with her and helped keep her warm. We allowed him to see her after she was gone and he seemed to understand.

Grover really bonded with us. He was too smart to be kept in a cage. He could easily open the doors and roam the room. Since he was a good boy and never got into anything, we decided to just let him have the run of the room. He would run around and put the toys away, run through the tunnels and play in the room, but he liked to return to the cage to sleep. He collected various small toys and hoarded them in his cage. Sometimes he had so many toys in his bed, I wondered if there was enough room for him. His collection included a rather large stuffed daredevil toy, several crocheted mice, and a small Simba toy that I had to re-sew several times.

With proper vet care, exercise, and good food, Grover really blossomed. He loved to play, he seemed to love people and he was a happy healthy old guy. We never imagined that a ferret could be so sweet and affectionate. He smelled like French toast and my favorite thing to do was snuggle with him sleeping on my chest. The smell of warm maple syrup was intoxicating.

We brought home another old gal named Ms. Sebastian. We ended up calling her Betty, because it seemed to suit her. She was a pistol and did not get along well with other ferrets. We thought that since they were both old and solitary, they might get along well. Betty tried to take Grover's nose off, and she left him with a little scar on his nose, that would never go away. We had to keep them separated, so the only time Grover was in a cage was when she was out, for his own protection.

Betty was over 12 years old, so when her health started to fail and she started moving slow and sleeping more, we figured it was safe to let them both have the run of the room all the time. When Betty was having a bad day, Grover seemed to nurture her. She crawled into bed with him and he did not leave. He provided a big warm belly for her to sleep on. When Betty left this world, Grover was alone again. But he always had us.

In October 2003, our son brought home Elmo. He was a baby kitten from the neighbor's stray cats. We wanted to bring him in before some animal killed him, but he was only 5 weeks old. He needed a mommy and Grover stepped right into that role. Grover and Elmo spent a lot of time together when he was a baby. Elmo snuggled up to Grover for warmth and he crawled into his cage at night to sleep. Elmo continued to try to sleep in Grover's cage long after he was too big to fit in there. Elmo is now a big tom cat, but he still acts a lot like a ferret, and we owe that to being raised by Grover.

Once Elmo became an adult, he was less interested in Grover, so it was back to just us again. Grover was very bonded to us, and would often sleep on my lap or my chest while I watched TV at night. We gave him soup a few times a day with his medicine and he always reminded us when it was time for soup or time to snuggle. His health slowly deteriorated as he got older, but he had over two really great years with us.

In the end he told us when he was ready to leave us. He started sleeping all the time and started refusing his soup. We had been taking him to the vet for monthly visits, but his time had come. He was very old and had numerous illnesses, but it was still very hard to say goodbye. The thought of not seeing his sweet face, or feeling his warm body on my chest, or smelling that French toast scent is unbearable. Unfortunately, he completely stopped eating on Easter and we had to help him over the bridge on March 28, 2005.

We love you Grover.

Grover's Photo Gallery