Tell Me About Your Waardy!

[jellybelly]

One of my boys soon to be 4yr old Wally is a Waardy.  He has some "Wallyisims"

1.) Profoundly deaf, although it dosen't seem to effect his ability to socialize with his family.
2.) Does the head look up thing
3.) Is clumsy!
4.) Has the sweetest and mildest temper, all my babies are sweet, no biting or fighting ect.  But Walls is the sweetest, in fact he is allowed to follow me around the house a lot of the time because he stays with me and dosen't tend to get in to things.
5.) Loves to be held upside down and taken to various objects that he will "swim to" so he can tap his super long top canine teeth on them.
6.) Which reminds me, super long top canines!
7.) Odd gate, he keeps his back legs together and kind of skips along, giving him his Wally swagger.
8.) Suffers from "Wally Belly" which is gas attacks and bad poo.
9.) Is weaker in the front than his brothers and sisters, has to carefully go down stairs ect. 
10.) has less muscle overall than his brothers and sisters.
11.) Likes to lay on my feet.
12.) His favorite activity is pushing objects away from walls. 

Thats my Wally!  I often wonder how many of these are Wally things, and how many are Waardy things, so please tell me about your Waardy babies!

[msav]

One thing people may not know about waardies. Maybe not all of them. Be carful with them and water. when they go into the water they do not know which way is up or down and they tend to swim down to try and get to the surface.

This is extremely dangerous if they manage to get into a pool or pond un supervised.


That being said I have truly loved all of my waardies. They are special in so many different ways and always make me smile. I miss my waardies.

I also noted that all of my waardies did not like to climb. they preferred to stay on the floor and did not climb on cat trees or even hammocks in the cage.  not sure if that is the same with all of them though.

[jellybelly]

Wow, thanks for the heads up about the water. Wally loves water, in fact his prized possession is the plug to the tub. He likes to go in and have the water running but not stopped up and he works the plug free, brings it to me, I put it back in and we go again. When we first got him, he was a rescue who had been allowed to free roam with his buddy, he was very thin and had almost no strength in his front so climbing and stairs were impossible. As he has bulked up though he has become a very determined climber, determined being the key word. He's super single minded when he wants to do something, so if he sets his sights on getting up something, he wont stop until he does. Your pic is adorable, thanks for the info!

[abbeytheferret6]

Loved my waardy---LeeLee. She passed away last year.
She was very intelligent. She always liked the 2nd floor of the Ferret Nation. She was so excited to discover the hammock up there that she bounced back and forth off of it onto her sister several times. she did not get on my furniture because her legs were short.

'will never forget her trying to intimidate me as a baby when I tried to check her mouth for an object. She had found a piece of jerky under the bed. I reached under the bed to grab her. She jumped and hissed at me with the piece jerky in her mouth. Never saw a ferret lunge at someone. Cutest little display I ever saw. Got her at Petco mainly because I felt sorry for her eating the Yesterday's News as food. She rather had that than the kibble.

Your baby looks so precious.

[jellybelly]

Awe, she sounds so sweet. Im so sorry for your loss. My two eldest, Walls the little girl we got him with Weasel, are turning 4 this year and I cant help but worry. Especially for Wally, as I know they tend to be more fragile.

A few days after we got Wally (and before we found our current vet, ferret vets are so hard to find here) he had an attack of "Wally Belly" and I had never experienced anything like it. I went into full panic mode thinking he had a blockage, "Wally Belly" attacks can range from a green poo to all out vomiting, bloating, not pooping, and a miserable Wally. We ended up getting the on-call from Cornell on the phone and started making the 6 hour haul down. A couple hours in he had a mighty fart, popped up from where he had been curled on my lap and was totally normal again. Lesson learned, well mostly, I still turn into a helicopter ferret parent every time that little belly of his isn't as slinky as it should be.

Thank you for responding! There isn't a lot of practical info on Waardenburgs in ferrets out there.

[unclejoe]

My waardie Booboo was a little anti-social, not that he didn’t like others but he only slept with Miss Prissy, usually ( and she hated everyone else) and I often found him shadow boxing, jumping around and dooking by himself. As soon as I offered a toy or a hand wrestle, he would look at me like I had 2 heads and then walk away.
Be careful with the tub plug. My kook/heart ferret, Booger/Scamp would steal mine and every time I found it it would be missing another small piece of rubber. I even put it up on the back of the toilet but he was able to jump to the toilet seat and get it.
Once he got hold of a foam rubber ear plug and emergency surgery and $1600 in vet bills couldn’t save him. He had pooped probably 90% of it out but the piece that got him was the size of a grain of rice and got lodged in a turn in his small intestine.

[ashlin]

Wally is a cutie!

Mine is mama's girl. Still the only one who will sleep in my lap. She communicates mainly by hissing (hisses when she doesn't like something, hisses when she wants to play, hisses just because she feels like it) and ended up teaching this behavior to her sister... It's like I have two snakes.

Rita is a big drama queen. Whenever she gets her shots at the vet she cries. Screamed even when they swabbed her ears. She hates whenever she's not allowed to do something and will let you know just how she feels about it. Her sister by comparison has become very laid back.

We've been to two different vets now and I'm always told she's otherwise healthy, but there are a few quirks. She's rather thin and doesn't put on much weight during the warm months despite my efforts (she does become bigger during the winter), but she was always on the small side even as a baby. The vet and I are currently observing her weight and it's been stable. I've also had her checked for her habit of grinding her teeth, but she seems to do this as a general sign of discomfort, especially if I'm holding her head to clean her teeth or check her ears.

Anyway, I love her. She's a really lovely girl. She seems to get whiter every time she goes through a coat change.

[abbeytheferret6]

She communicates mainly by hissing (hisses when she doesn't like something, hisses when she wants to play, hisses just because she feels like it) and ended up teaching this behavior to her sister... It's like I have two snakes.

Rita is a big drama queen. Whenever she gets her shots at the vet she cries. Screamed even when they swabbed her ears. She hates whenever she's not allowed to do something and will let you know just how she feels about it.

That is so funny:)

[caitmonster]

May 10, 2022 21:59:55 GMT -5 ashlin said:

She communicates mainly by hissing (hisses when she doesn't like something, hisses when she wants to play, hisses just because she feels like it) and ended up teaching this behavior to her sister... It's like I have two snakes.

I've also had her checked for her habit of grinding her teeth, but she seems to do this as a general sign of discomfort, especially if I'm holding her head to clean her teeth or check her ears.

Anyway, I love her. She's a really lovely girl. She seems to get whiter every time she goes through a coat change.

Awww she looks and sounds like my first little girlie Monster (so named because she was 1.2 pounds of spunk and dragged pairs of pants and full size blankets around the house).

[storm]

Mine, Nibbles, is very rambunctious and very loving. She's deaf was prone to hissing a lot when young but grew out of it. She doesn't make much of any noise now. She is a little gassy too. She's almost white now with a few random grey hairs. She started out grey with darker legs. I don't have access to my pics right now. She loves to cuddle when she wants to.