‘Come on, Jack, we’ve got to take Sam for his injections to stop him getting ill.’
‘Can I take him, Daddy?’ Jack asked, pestering his father to let him hold Sam’s lead.
‘I’ll take Sam, and you can take me,’ suggested his dad.
‘So Sam is here for his booster and general check-up, is that right?’ I asked when we were all in the consulting room.
‘Yeah, that’s it,’ replied Mr White.
‘Great, so how is he doing? Do you have any particular worries or concerns?’
‘Not really, he’s generally great. We want to get some weight off him, but a certain person enjoys sharing his dinner with him!’
I sympathized. It wasn’t the first time I’d heard something similar and looking at Jack, his arms draped around Sam’s neck, loudly whispering, ‘It’s OK, Sammy, the doctor is going to make you not get sick,’ I could see they had a very close bond.
I picked up my stethoscope and bent down to introduce myself to Sam and start my examination. He responded in excited exuberance, leaping forward, tail wagging furiously, and licked my face. Seeing this, Jack immediately started giggling uncontrollably. It was amusing, sure, but not that funny, I thought, but Jack was laughing hysterically until he finally burst out: ‘Sam just licked your face after he licked his willy!’
It probably wasn’t the first time I’d been licked in the face by a dog that had just been cleaning itself, but to have it pointed out by a rather too observant and vocal child was a new one on me.
‘Jack, calm down,’ said his father, in a failed attempt to stifle his chuckle.
Jack slapped his hands across his mouth as a reflex attempt at politeness, but realizing that Daddy thought it was amusing too, knew he wasn’t really in trouble and so the chuckling continued.
‘I do apologize for my son,’ the father said.
‘No, please don’t worry, it was very … funny,’ I replied.
The rest of the consultation proceeded uneventfully, but haunted by the child’s comment, I took a moment to wash my face after they had gone. As I was drying off, I heard the doorbell signalling the arrival of the sick ferret.
I heard them at the front desk, and then in a whirlwind a young couple burst through into my consulting room, the female member of the party clutching a towel, which presumably contained the ferret, in her arms.
‘Please, sir, you must do something, please, there’s something wrong with Freddie, I think he might be dying.’
She placed the towel on the table.
Reeling from the sudden invasion, I took a moment to regain my composure and then carefully unwrapped the towel to reveal a fairly recumbent large male sable ferret. The disturbance caused him to twitch involuntarily and then lift his head trying to stand. As soon as he found his feet, his head started gently swaying from side to side, so uncontrollably and to such a degree that when he tried to walk he lost his balance and fell over, face planting into the towel. Determined, he attempted it again with the same outcome, and then a third time. It was distressing to watch.
‘How long has he been like this?’ I asked. I had a moderate amount of knowledge about ferrets, but I had never seen anything like this before. The couple looked at each other, and then the man answered.
‘We just found him like it, he was fine this morning.’ He looked to his partner for confirmation.
‘Yeah, that’s right,’ she said quickly. Their behaviour was odd, and I couldn’t quite work it out. ‘Is he going to be all right? Please, do whatever you need to, he’s our baby.’
‘I can’t say for sure, I’ve never quite seen anything like this before in a ferret.’ Then, thinking aloud, I processed the sight before my eyes. ‘It’s odd, very odd, such an acute onset … maybe he’s ingested something, like some sort of toxin?’ As soon as I said it, it suddenly seemed to make more sense. ‘Does he live in a cage or does he just roam round the house?’
They looked at each other again, and then he answered. ‘Yeah, he has a cage that he’s in at night or when we’re out, but when we’re home we just let him loose. He’s very sociable so tends to stay in the same room as us, so we usually know what he’s got up to.’ This answer seemed to roll off his tongue more fluently, and this time he didn’t seek his girl-friend’s approval. They were hiding something, I was sure of it, but what?
‘So has he been out today and did you see him eat anything he shouldn’t have?’ I asked.
‘Um, well …’ he began.
‘Is he going to be all right?’ she interrupted.
Yes, there was definitely something odd here, I thought. A toxic ingestion seemed to fit the bill, but what? Chocolate could be a possibility, but he seemed too sedated for that. Grapes would cause an acute kidney failure and he would be sick rather than sedated. Besides, if it was something like that, why were they being so cagey? What could it be? It was almost as though he was drunk. I needed to probe a bit more.
‘I’m honestly not sure. If I knew what he had eaten, then it would give me a better idea. Can you think what it might be?’
‘Um, well …’ he said again.
‘Steve, you’ve got to tell him. Just tell him, he needs to know, and if Freddie dies it will all be your fault,’ she exclaimed.
‘Um, well, what it is, right …’ he began, ‘I went round to my mates, right, to play some computer games, right, and, um … I took Freddie with me, cos Jess was out and I didn’t want to leave him on his own. Anyway, we was playing Call of Duty and Freddie got into my mate’s rucksack which he had just left on the floor—’
‘He’s eaten marijuana,’ Jess exploded then, turning to Steve and unleashing a tirade. ‘I can’t believe you left your weed in your rucksack on the floor while you and Mike played your stupid computer games, he was bound to get to it, you idiot!’
‘JESS!’ Steve cut in, scared that she was giving away too much information. ‘It was my mate’s dope, right?’ he said with conviction, looking at Jess for backup, ‘I didn’t know it was there, did I?’
‘I don’t care, I’m not covering for you anymore. You let him eat your weed, you’re an idiot, a complete and utter idiot! Stupid man, you deserve whatever trouble you get – I don’t know what I see in you, and if Freddie dies I don’t know what I’ll do.’
Now everything made sense. I understood it all. This ferret in front of me was stoned, completely high! It was certainly a novel case for me. I remembered learning in vet school about the effects of cannabis on dogs, but not ferrets, though, logically, the symptoms and treatment should be similar. The key question that would determine his prognosis was how much had he consumed. If the taste hadn’t matched the intriguing smell and he had just had a nibble, then all would be good; he might sleep for a while, but should make a full recovery. If on the other hand he had properly tucked into the marijuana, then it would undoubtedly prove to be his last meal.
The domestic argument that had erupted in front of me was still in full swing.
‘Look, I’m not going to report you,’ I interjected, ‘I just need to know exactly how much he’s eaten and in what form, so I’ll know what his prognosis is and what we need to do.’
‘Well, Steve?’ Jess said, turning to him accusingly. ‘How much was left from your Saturday night with the lads?’
‘Don’t play innocent, Jess, you had some too.’ Clearly Steve didn’t entirely trust me and now if he was going down he’d make sure to take Jess with him.
‘STEVE, just tell him!’
‘All right, all right. I don’t reckon he had much. I heard the rustling in the rucksack, didn’t think much of it, and then remembered the grass, so I rushed to my bag and grabbed him out. He had some on his nose, but there didn’t look like much had gone from the pouch. I don’t think he was in there long at all.’