them, it was obvious that their snack was in danger!  They would always just grab the snack and run--unless it was Ziggy.  In that case, Smokey always got the snack.  That's OK, though, as I always had another snack for Ziggy.

One of Smokey's favorite tactics for winning a wrestling match was to go lay on the offender.  If a new ferret was being introduced to the group, Smokey would go over and lay on them until Fuzzer decided if they were to be wrestled into submission, or if they would just be accepted without further challenge.  Smokey acted just like he was a thug, working for Fuzzer.  He'd get the intruder down and hold him until the master got there to decide the intruder's fate!

When Smokey starting to go downhill, he knew that I was the one to go to.  He would come over and fang my foot, but wouldn't take a snack.  I wasn't sure if it was a temporary thing or not, so I watched him for a few days.  He got thin very quickly and I became alarmed.
I took him to the vet, but they have a number of vets on staff and the one that I normally have treat my ferrets wasn't in that evening.  Another vet saw him and gave me no reason for hope.  However, she insisted on keeping him overnight and giving him a glucose IV treatment.  She also started him on Amoxicillin, as he was starting to get diarrhea.

The next day, I was told that I could come get him.  He wasn't any worse, but he didn't appear to be any better, either.  It was decided that he was insulinomic and that prednisone was the recommended treatment.  Unfortunately, the sicker he got, the worse he tolerated the prednisone.

I increased the dosage, hoping that it would counteract the insulin doses being pumped into his bloodstream by the tumor inside his pancreas.  He simply didn't want the prednisone and would fight me,