“Did your ferret leap from your moving vehicle?”

“Dear PoPville,

Shot in the dark for the owners of this lost pet:

So I was enjoying a late brunch on the patio of Napoli Pasta Bar Sunday afternoon (great brunch, by the way), lazily watching the Sherman Avenue traffic roll past in the wilting heat, when a black truck turning left on Girard Street catches my eye — and I’ll be damned if there isn’t a long, white ferret dangling out the passenger-side window. The passenger, it seemed, was stone asleep, and the driver apparently unaware of the critter trying to make its escape. The truck makes its turn, disappears up the street, and the next thing I see is a white furry face peeking out from behind the wheel of a parked car — the little guy made his escape.

Sherman and Girard St, NW

I notified animal control, and spent the remainder of the meal with one eye on my eggs and one on the albino ferret skulking around under a blue sedan across the street. Our meal complete, and the animal control officer nowhere to be found, we couldn’t leave the poor little guy to the ravages of urban traffic, so we and a few other curious, concerned passers-by spent a good half hour chasing Garrett (as we came to call him) away from moving vehicles, trying to entice him with water, bread, and other refreshments, and wondering what to do. Mostly he seemed pretty overwhelmed by the day’s adventures, and content to nap in the shade beneath his favorite blue sedan.

Fortunately, the owner of said sedan appeared, and happened to have farmboy credentials and experience capturing wildlife. I, fortunately, was in possession of a cardboard box (yesterday was moving day; a real community effort). So when it became clear that animal control was still a good 30 minutes away, we put Garrett the Ferret in a box, and drove him up to the Humane Rescue Alliance. His arrival was warmly celebrated by a team of animal-lovers, who noted that he was “alert, hydrated, and curious,” which I guess is the trifecta of ferret health.

So all of this is just to say: if your ferret might have leapt from the passenger window of your truck on Sunday afternoon in Columbia Heights, we would like to applaud you for raising such an alert, curious, and charming ferret, admonish you to keep your windows rolled up, and inform you that you can collect him from the Humane Rescue Alliance of Washington DC. If he is not claimed in the next day or so, he will be put up for adoption, and let me tell you, Garrett was such a charmer I’m having second thoughts myself!