News media have at last confirmed the urban legend in which a person somewhere south of the border buys a lapdog, only to discover later that it is a large rodent. A retired man from Catamarca, Argentina, went to a market in Buenos Aires, and purchased what he believed to be two toy poodles, only to discover after getting home that they were ferrets, reports the Daily Mail.
The ferrets had been given steroids to make them appear larger and were groomed to look like fluffy white toy poodles. The small poodles usually sell for around $1000, and the man paid $150 for each of the large ferrets. He was not the only dog buyer duped however. Local news in Buenos Aires discovered a woman had been sold a ferret passed off as a chihuahua as well.
The Daily Mail provides useful tips on ferret characteristics: “When happy, ferrets may perform a routine known as the weasel war dance,” the Mail reports, “which is characterized by a series of hops and frenzied attempts to bump into things. This is often accompanied by a soft clucking noise called dooking. When upset ferrets make a hissing noise.”