This is Toby. He is the latest addition to the Herd. Sean and I had gone to the Baltimore Ferret Club’s ferret show in October. We were only going to watch the judging, and to pick up some litter or other ferret goodies, but definitely NOT to get another ferret. That was until we got to Crosby’s Keystone Ferrets’ display table.

Crosby’s had some nice-looking hammocks and other items on display. Then we noticed the cage full of rescues available for adoption. Sean started asking about the ferrets, and the nice lady behind the table started pulling them out. "Oh, no," I thought. Touching and holding was definitely off limits for me. Then Sean put one in my arms. And I melted. After about an hour of "yes, we’ll take him" "no, we can’t" between us, we finally decided to bring him home.

Toby is our sixth ferret to join the family and the third sable (poor Kyle is the lone white ferret now). He is easy to distinguish from Slinky and Noel for a few reasons. First, he has a large amount of white on his face above his mask. Second, his coloring is more black and white, while Slinky is brownish. Third, there is a rather abrupt change in the color of his coat from his torso to his legs, while both Slinky and Noel are more uniform in color all over their bodies (except for the face). Fourth, he is much larger than Noel. And finally, he has two distinct blue dot tattoos in his right ear.

Toby is a bit of a booger when it comes to nipping. Apparently my wrist is very tasty to him. He loves to give kisses when I get him out of the cage. He is very good at gently taking kibble bits out of my hand.

Tobster fits in pretty well with the Herd. We picked 10/28/99 as his birthday (one year from the date we "rescued" him), so he is a little over a year old, the youngest in the group. Kyle doesn’t seem to interested in playing with him, but Noel loves to chase him around. Toby even likes the dogs, as long as they are gentle with him. He is the first of my ferrets that is able to get over the 2-ft ferret gate that I use to keep them in "their" room. He is very persistent and will jump non-stop until he makes it.