It's a Ferret Life

From the outside, the modest brick house looks like the other homes in the Scenic Heights neighborhood of northeast Pensacola.

But this house is home to Wes and Susan Lee Hurley, 44 ferrets, seven cats, a dog, two hamsters, nine doves and a "neurotic" pigeon.

It's the Ferret and Dove Sanctuary, a "no-kill" facility, which cares for ill or abandoned ferrets and other animals.

The sanctuary got its start eight years ago when Wes Hurley took in a mistreated ferret. Word got around, and he soon was taking in more.

"I had to learn fast," says Wes, 72. "You have to be able to speak ferret."

People don't realize it, he says, but the ferret is the third most popular house pet, behind only cats and dogs. Unfortunately, some people are unable or unwilling to care for them.

For Wes and Susan, the day begins at 5 a.m. with chores and animal care.

"I'm their mom. That's what I do," says Susan, 55, a licensed practical nurse for 30 years.

As you can imagine, the combined animal smells inside the house may stun you at first, but eventually you become almost numb to the aroma.

The population rises and falls, with the Hurleys taking in animals and letting people adopt them -- but only if they meet strict guidelines.

"We don't adopt them to just anybody," Wes says, noting the detailed information sent to anyone interested in acquiring a ferret.

There have been as many as 67 ferrets at one time in the four-bedroom house on Tom Lane Drive.

Animals arrive for various reasons:

· Seventeen chinchillas needed a home after their owner was evicted.

· A hamster moved in after a boy mistreated it, and his mother called the sanctuary.

· Susan found the pigeon, featherless and purple, outside a store. She nursed him back to health, but he won't leave. He prefers his cage near the doves, which were laying eggs the other day.

Sue and Wes hope to expand their mission.

Wes says he dreams of opening a much larger sanctuary, where more animals can be kept and children can be taught how to care for them. It could include a big aviary, maybe even be a veterinary school.

"We're going to have to have help," says Wes, who hopes some business-savvy people join his effort.

Meanwhile, the animals need food and care, says Susan, mixing some "duck soup," a concoction favored by ferrets.

She talks to all of them, somehow keeping their names straight -- Work Spock, Bandit Zora, Rosie Silverlove.

"Many will respond if you call them," Sue says. "They associate it with food and good stuff."

Wes, a retired merchant marine, drives a courier vehicle four hours a day to help pay for the animals' food and care.

While some ferrets will be adopted for $75, many will live out their days at the sanctuary, unclaimed or too ill for adoption. Adrenal cancer is a big concern for ferrets.

"Some of these poor babies will never leave here alive," Wes says.

Still, he and Sue pursue their unusual calling.

"What I used to do with humans, I do with ferrets," she says. "The things you do for 100-to-400-pound people in a nursing home, we do for 1-to-5-pound ferrets.'