Rudyard Insists on a Treat

"Mom! Mom! Mom! Moooooommmm!" he says as I open his cage doors. He backs up into a corner that is heavily coated with newspaper.

"Yes?" I say. I wait. When he retreats from the newspaper corner, there is nothing there. I snort. "I know what you are trying to do."

"Give me a treat now!" he hops up and down on his front paws. "I did it! I did it!"

"No you didn't," I tell him. "You were pretending."

"No, I did it! Look, I'll do it again!" He backs up into the corner again. Again, when he retreats, there is nothing there. "Look!" he tells me, then races down the ladder to the bottom floor. He backs into another heavily newspapered area.

I wait.

When he comes out from his squat, there is still nothing.

"MOM! I did it! Now give it to me!"

"You didn't do it," I told him. "You didn't do anything."

Huffingly, he jumps out of the cage and onto the tiles of the kitchen floor. He sees another patch of newspaper. Excitedly, he runs over to it.

"Look! Look!" he yells at me. I am distracted by Bowie, who is in a lovey mood this morning. Rudyard puffs up and runs over to me. When I finally give him a glance, he races back to the newspaper.

"LOOK!" he tells me. "Look at me!" When he leaves the newspaper, again there is nothing for me to be impressed.

"Sweetie, you can't just pretend."

"I'm not!"

"Then where is it?"

He runs down the hallway, giving up on me. A few minutes later, though, he runs right back up. He finds another patch of newspaper. Noticing that he doesn't demand my attention, I glance over my shoulder and see that he has relieved himself thoroughly on the paper.

"Now that deserves a treat, my love." I pull out the ferretvite; he bounds towards me, his excitement evident. "Here you go."

I give him the top of the bottle. He runs off, chewing on it happily and licking all the ferretvite off of it.