Cleo died about a year ago. She was put down because she wasn’t doing well. She couldn’t keep food or water down and was having issues with her bowel/bladder. Cleo was about 14 years old and these ailments were tied to old age. It was suggested that cancer was likely involved but there was nothing definitive.

Maggie died a few months ago. We knew it was coming as her health began to suffer. She was in and out of the vet several times before she had to be put down. She had tumors removed from her leg but they eventually came back and spread to other areas of her body.

One day, she started puking and just collapsed on the living room floor. We rushed her to the emergency vet and it was determined to be hopeless. Maggie was about 12 years old when she passed and that was about average for her particular breed. Everything she was experiencing was again tied to old age.

Zane was our roughly 3 year old ferret. He passed away yesterday. Zane had begun to lose weight but that can be normal for ferrets. He took a significant turn last week. He was at the vet and put on antibiotics for a week before we had to return to the vet..

Zane’s back legs became paralyzed and got much worse, very quickly.

When we took him back to the vet yesterday, there were 3 possibilities. All 3 involved cancerous tumors on his spine or in his brain. All 3 were fatal and pretty much guaranteed that he would suffer a painful death very soon.

We had to put him down because it was the only humane thing we could do.

What happened to Zane is actually a fairly common occurrence in ferrets and not a freak occurrence.

The point is this. Everything that happened was well inside the norm for each particular animal. Maggie and Cleo were age related and Zane was a common condition that affects ferrets.

None of this make the loss easier to bare but I don’t want people worrying that we were living in a cancer hotspot or anything like that.

I really appreciate the concern and wanted to address what some people have been asking me about.

It sucks when any pet dies. According to our vet, nothing was unusual or suspect about anything. I hope that clarifies things a little bit.