his time!

He also liked to harass the cat at every opportunity.  Fortunately for the cat, he couldn't run that fast.  If the cat became sufficiently annoyed with him, he would just get up and trot off somewhere that Smokey couldn't get to.  I did see Smokey actually tackle the cat, though.

Smokey was laying on the floor, seemingly minding his own business and along came the cat.  Smokey suddenly (I've never seen him move so fast!) jumped up, grabbed the cat by the scruff of the neck and pulled him over!  The cat just laid there, totally stunned!  Smokey then jumped up on the cat and laid on him, as though pinning him there!

After several seconds, the cat came to his senses and just got up, dumping Smokey to the floor.  He then jumped up on a chair (the cat knows which ferrets can get to which places--and knows Smokey would never be able to climb up on that chair!), to wait for me to open the back door so he could escape outside!

Smokey wasn't exactly the smartest ferret that I have in the house, though.  He was very unoriginal when it came to hiding places.  Most of my ferrets have found at least one place to hide where I can't find them, when its bedtime.  As a result, those ferrets have gotten the extra fun of staying out for the entire night, until I found them the next morning.  On the bad side for them, I don't leave food out at night (though water is always available), so they tend to get hungry (this guarantees that they will come out looking for me the next morning!).

Smokey never found a secret hiding place.  When it was time for bed, even my daughter could find him with no trouble!  He also was never very slick when trying to steal another ferret's snack.  If a ferret was eating a snack and Smokey was heading towards 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.