Auburn family happy to cohabit with 141 ferrets

As a teenager, she happily shared her room with a family of mice -- until her father found out and ended the arrangement.

As an adult, Denise Cummings shares her Auburn home with her family -- and 141 ferrets.

She knows some people think she's crazy. But then, the 57-year-old says, she never figured on falling in love.

The year was 2002, and her adult son called to say neighbors were getting rid of a ferret.

"She was a beautiful dark-eyed white," says Cummings, who went to see the animal and found herself immediately smitten.

The ferret, named Dolly, aka Jaws, was less impressed.

"When I went to pick her up, she nailed me, bit me all the way to the bone," Cummings says with a good-natured laugh. "I sat there with tears coming down my cheeks."

It would happen several times more.

Cummings learned that Dolly had been neglected and abused. So Dolly became what Cummings terms "a loving challenge."

A man with experience rescuing ferrets offered advice: It would take a year, maybe two, for Dolly to learn to trust, he said. As it turns out, he was wrong.

It took just seven months.

One day Dolly did what Cummings calls "the weasel war dance."

"It's an invitation to a human to play with them," she says. "I got to pick her up and hold her."

Thus Cummings' affection was cemented.

Cummings worked in a pet store where people brought ferrets they no longer wanted. If they were sick, Cummings took the animals home to nurse them.

And so began Denise's Delightful Dookers Ferret Rescue. Word spread, and Cummings and her husband, Michael, turned a room in their garage into a "ferretorium." The family room also was converted to accommodate the growing number of ferrets.

A ferret named Becky Sue arrived after teens were found trying to set her tail on fire.

"She was one who thought she owned the place," Cummings says with a laugh.

Dookers (named for the sound ferrets make) was a dark sable "with an attitude," Cummings says. Given up by her owners, she made it clear from the start that she preferred company of the human variety.

"She didn't want to be with other ferrets. She'd beat the bejabbers out of them," Cummings says. "She trained us. She had a plush octopus with a sound box in it. If I came into the room and didn't pay attention to her she'd shake the octopus until I opened her cage and held her."

When the personable ferret died of cancer last May, "there wasn't a dry eye in the house," Cummings says.

Not that there's a lot of time to waste on tears.

Up before 5 a.m. each day, Cummings lets ferrets out for exercise while she changes their litter boxes and feeds and medicates them. A small core of volunteers pitches in to help during the day and evening.

Sponsors help support the organization. So do fundraisers, such as a garage sale volunteers organized last summer.

Cummings, whose efforts also focus on educating people about ferrets, figures 140 of the animals have been adopted out of the shelter since she began the effort.

"When we adopt here you don't pick your ferret, your ferret picks you," says Cummings, whose adoption process involves providing evidence that the person adopting can keep the animal in his or her residence and has knowledge of how to care for the animal.

If some people see ferrets as the stretch version of a rat, Cummings sees them as curious, loving and engaging "scamps" -- part puppy, part kitten, part "two 2-year-olds," she says.

"I am hooked," she says. "I see so much personality. If you watch their body language, you can learn a lot from ferrets. They take care of their old, their sick and their injured. They are very forgiving in ways people are not forgiving. Some of them come from terrible abuse situations.

"Sometimes you have to work with them, but eventually love wins out. Then they start playing again. It's wonderful to watch."

For information on adoption, volunteering, donations or sponsorships, go to washingtonferret.com.