A Russian sable living in Ireland

No, they keep redoing the tests, but they can’t find anything. I asked when it will be over, I was given a few answers but at this point I don’t even know if I will get a definite answer.

I mean I still maintain it couldn’t be rabies, because no animal anywhere has ever, ever survived rabies for a fraction of the time that Arrow displayed his stereotypical behaviour for. Rabies kills within days when it becomes symptomatic, maybe 2 weeks at the most. Not over many months. As an animal born from a captive population, bottle raised in isolation, who had been kept in rabies free countries for the last 7 months of his life, having been kept as a solitary animal his whole life, I’m not sure of where he could have realistically contracted it anyway. He didn’t display any symptoms of rabies, he was still a gentle, playful cub up until the end. He had a good appetite, he drank often and kept himself groomed. He was interested in his surroundings and played with his toys. He wanted to sit on my shoulder, climb all over me & sleep inside the jumpers I was wearing. His balance was fine, he moved normally and didn’t seem confused or wobbly. He didn’t drool, no paralysis, he wasn’t aggressive or unusually calm.

I stopped updating here because they came back and killed my dog too, “to be safe”. I don’t know why they wouldn’t let her go into quarantine. I don’t know how to face that part.

And someone found this blog, asked if they could write an article about Arrow, didn’t wait for a reply and wrote it anyway a day later, quoting me both in what they wrote & in the comments, so I decided not to give them anything else to use. I’m sure they’ve lost interest and moved on to the next person grieving their pets so it’s probably fine to say this much now.

My guess is the results will be somewhat inconclusive, as stereotypical behaviour and many purely neurological conditions can’t be tested for after death (rabies would be a virus that causes neurological conditions, not the brain itself suffering from damage or malfunctioning or something wrong with its structure). There may also be a virus of some kind, or perhaps the vaccines were unsuitable for sables & he was also having some kind of suppressed reaction. Of course without testing you can’t rule out something like that just from observing an animal, but after consulting with a lot of people with experience with diseases, mustelids, stereotypical behaviour in exotics in general etc, we call just saw purely mental/ neurological signs of stress. Intelligent, arboreal animals are extremely prone to it, species like tayra & martens are particularly at risk of developing it and not letting it go even when improvements to their care & environment are made. Tayra will actually do cartwheels off the walls all day long. Mink on fur farms suck and nibble on the end of their tails until they become open sores and fall off, mustelids handle stress weirdly. It’s part of why they aren’t popular display animals at zoos, and why Arrow’s quarantine period was possibly harmful to him too. A bare sterile enclosure was what was necessary, but for a sable it’s more harmful than we could have guessed.

In a few years if I import a group of sables & Siberian weasels (my other love!) from Russia I’ll just build my own approved quarantine facility, I’ve spoken with a few importers who’ve done this and it’s definitely preferable even if there are a lot of hoops to jump through to get it approved. But then I would be able to manage them from the moment they arrived and they would have plenty of enrichment the whole way through. Obviously first I need to buy a house with some land covered in forest to build them some kind of monster arboretum enclosures. I’m lucky enough to have since met an importer I trust completely who moves animals for zoos, and a lawyer with a special interest in exotics who runs a sanctuary so between us we could plan this to go smoothly this time. But obviously the expense is going to be immense, and they will just be pets, so it’s not like investing in a breeding facility and expecting it to pay for itself in time through the sale of cubs. It’ll just be like... one tiny human cottage, next some huge zoo grade & sized enclosures. Sounds like my kind of heaven!

Whatever way I’m wired, I don’t get along with people, or I can’t maintain interest in them maybe. It’s just always been like that, I find them distasteful and jarring (sorry people!). Domestic animals have more or less been mentally stunted to stay in a needy baby phase that makes them much more easy going company, compliant and trainable, but it’s a bit like spending all day around kids with no real conversation. They’re very sweet, in 99% of cases they would make most people happier than the reality of caring for a sable, but they don’t “click” with me the same way. I click with mustelids, but can’t face loving another ferret or mink, doomed to live in a broken body, managing health conditions from a young age and expecting a sudden & unpreventable death. So if I could invest in a relationship with an animal spanning 18 - 22 years with that kind of mental capacity, then it’s worth it to me.

Sadly, it would actually be much easier for me to acquire significantly more demanding mustelids that are already within the eu pet trade, like Asian short claw otters, honey badgers, tayra... but even if I wanted those, they really are serious animals that ask a lot more of their keepers than I could give as a private owner. After all, sables weigh less than most cats & have been farmed in captivity for a long time, it’s a very different situation. There are a few zorilla keepers around though, maybe I’ll come across someone breeding those in the meantime. Stinky & bad tempered little gremlins, but I could forgive that!

In the meantime so I don’t crack up from the lack of what I consider to be good company, I’ve decided to begin the process of becoming a zookeeper. It’s a little tricky because you need to find placement before you can begin the apprenticeship through BIAZA, and of course most zoos want you to have the apprenticeship before you apply for a position. But I’ll stick at it and I’m sure something will come through! There’s a few collections in the U.K. with pine martens, and a few zoos across Europe with yellow throated martens so maybe I’ll be lucky & end up at one of those to get my interim fix :’) I almost visited the British Wildlife Centre when I was visiting my sister in the UK a few weeks ago, but I couldn’t face coming eye to eye with any kind of marten again just yet.

I don’t feel like publicly slamming him because no matter what the truth is about what he felt and thought about Arrow, the fact is he had this very specialised vet (I’m sorry I’m not going to pretend I even remember half of the people I spoke to over the last few days or any of their titles) who was in a position of authority over him telling him to report it. So he really didn’t have a choice and there’s no point speculating. All I know is, when he called me to give me time to prepare he really didn’t want to have to get the words out. I could hear him pacing I think. I was the one who told him he had a duty of care that was legally binding and extends beyond just me and Arrow, and it didn’t sound like he could get out of it. It wasn’t the outcome he wanted either.

Yes maybe if I’d gone to a different vet things might have been different. Or maybe they wouldn’t have called me first and given me a fighting chance. But at the time I was using a vet who:

* I had researched in advance of getting Arrow, I actually knew him as a reptile vet and breeder anyway, but I asked other exotics keepers who the recommended and this vet was spoken really highly of in his dedication to exotics.

* I had discussed my plan to get Arrow with this vet before he arrived so I could be sure there was a vet willing to agree to care for him.

* Had rushed out to see us the moment I called that time Arrow had a concussion and I thought he was just spontaneously dying.

* Let me PM him with updates on Arrow and send him videos of the behaviours progression so we could monitor it together, so he let me in to his personal time too in a way (I asked if this was okay with him btw I didn’t just start bombarding him on Facebook haha).

* Literally called in everyone working in the clinic on Arrow’s second visit to come and watch him run around the room because he thought they’d love to meet him, but wanted to wait until at least his second visit so Arrow wouldn’t be overwhelmed. He seemed to enjoy Arrow’s visits and was comfortable to let Arrow hop onto his shoulders to play with his stethoscope in the past. He knew Arrow was as socialised, affectionate and how much he meant to me and how hard it was to get him here.

* He never made me feel judged for having an exotic, he listened to me about Arrow’s care and put in time to ask questions about what research I’d done and where I was getting my information from so I know he wanted me to do what was right for Arrow.

Out of the vets available to me in this country, I had had experience with most of the reputable exotics vets before through my reptiles. I’d moved around a bit, and I’d had animals referred between clinics for mystery or complex cases. I chose this vet because he was almost on my doorstep, so he would be there in emergencies and I wouldn’t have to stress Arrow out with long trips. He keeps exotics himself, so he doesn’t give me an anti exotics speech right in the door. His knowledge and advice are the most up to date that I have seen. He has always been patient and kind with me, which is worth mentioning because man do I get anxiety about my pets! The time I thought Arrow was dying from his concussion I was just sobbing the whole time, but he never made me feel bad about it, and I’ve had vets make me feel worse for being less upset in the past. He was the choice that made the most sense, I put a lot of thought into choosing the right vet for Arrow. If Arrow hadn’t been from Russia or been in an at risk country it wouldn’t have had to be reported.

He had some stereotypical behaviour from his time in quarantine, pacing and running in circles which was triggered by his separation anxiety. Over December I became very sick, and tried to go back on my meds, reacted badly to them, and had to have a period without meds before trying new ones. It was a really bad month for a lot of reasons, and though I spent a lot of time with Arrow I wasn’t able to put much energy into it. His stereotypical behaviour became worse, he started over grooming and nibbling one of his toes causing it to bleed. I believe he was very sensitive, and receptive to change, so perhaps my change in mood and lethargy was stressful for him. I brought him to his vet over this, and he reported this as a possible sign of rabies because Arrow had originated in Russia, which isn’t rabies free, even though Arrow had received two rabies vaccines this year, had passed through quarantine, and had been exhibiting this behaviour for longer than it’s possible for an animal showing signs of rabies to survive.

There is only one way of ruling out rabies, and that is a post mortem test on the brain. Unfortunately, once it is even posed as a possibility, it was to be resolved in a definite answer. There is no definitive test for stereotypical behaviour, but there is for rabies. So I was unable to prove that was the problem with Arrow, and they consider rabies too much of a risk to even let me try to quarantine him. I wasn’t allowed to appeal the departments decision, and though I tried to contact as many experts as I could across the world I couldn’t find someone who lived close enough for me to travel them over and inspect him in person and give a professional option that he was rabies free on time.

I managed to give him one last hug goodbye when I was left alone with him for a moment though I was meant to be forbidden from touching him, he snuggled in to my neck and let out a little sigh of relief to be held again. They had locked his enclosure only allowing me in to feed him once a day for two days, and we already missed each other so much. We could see each other through the window, Arrow would desperately run his cheek against the window next to mine, and bat his paws at the glass. Putting him back down felt like a betrayal, knowing I’ll never feel him jump onto my shoulder, rub his cheek against mine, hold my hand in his little paws, or fall asleep on my lap again... it feels like there’s a black hole in the shape of him following me.

We have temporarily given up on a whole prey diet because someone keeps stashing it and not eating it, but the occasional mouse is still enough of a novelty to be immediately consumed. I had high hopes of an enriching and nutritionally balanced experience by hanging quail, rats and pigeons from the ceiling so he would have to really use his whole body to work them free but then they became just toys that are good for shredding to him. Birds are just for plucking apparently 🙄

I don’t have an FAQ yet but that is a good idea!

Ireland is very lax on exotics, almost anything is technically legal (though of course we have to adhere to international or EU laws on animal trade and ownership, things like CITES etc). Bringing animals that are already legally in the EU in is straightforward, from outside the EU significantly more difficult because of quarantining. Ireland doesn’t actually have a quarantine zone for anything but cats, dogs & livestock. So you might need to have an approved BALAI quarantine zone built if you want to Q your pet within Ireland, it could be more straightforward to use an exotics Q zone in the U.K. and then bring it over once it’s Q period has passed.

In most cases, once they’re in the country you won’t need a license or to officially state that you’re keeping or rehoming the animal. Occasionally the department of agriculture will say they will only allow an animal in under certain circumstances, an example being someone who opened a wildlife sanctuary in Donegal this year who wanted to bring in three bears that needed to be rescued from Lithuania. He was told he needed to have his enclosures blueprint approved and the site inspected by someone from London Zoo (not too sure on what role they have there, but apparently they’re used as a bear enclosure consultant a lot? Sounds like a pretty unique job). So three bears are obviously somewhat more of a safety hazard than a sable, and I wasn’t given any enclosure restrictions, though they did briefly ask me how I was housing him, they seemed satisfied. If Arrow were to escape I suppose the worst damage he would do would be to domestic chickens or rabbits in someone’s garden, but the public wouldn’t be mauled so minimal risk I guess! (Technically he could also hybridise with the local pine martens creating an animal called a kidus but if no one else was going to bring that up I definitely wasn’t! He’s going on an implant called Suprelorin soon so he’ll be infertile anyway, it might reduce him marking everything with pee so much but also pine martens have a hard enough time in Ireland without hybrids running around, farmers/ groundskeepers keep wanting to cull them because they hunt the non-native game birds & they think they’re dangerous to humans 🙄).

To get the dept of agriculture to approve Arrow coming into the country he was moved under the same restrictions they would place on a zoo animal, because he isn’t recognised as a domestic strain here like he would be in Russia where even his breed is recognised. So there was a list of requirements I had to meet to bring him in, things like proof that he was born in captivity, proof that his travel crate was secure and a safe size for him, that he didn’t pose a rabies risk as Ireland is a rabies free country, things like that.

That part went on for weeks and was carried out by each side providing exactly one email a day. Towards the end I wanted to just push everyone into the same room, make them hold hands & have everyone say at the same time “this is fine, we actually all want the same thing, which is for this to be over, and the sable meets everyone’s requirements”

I thought it might be nice to show some other sable trivia besides Arrow sometimes, so here’s Kesha the sable!

Kesha/ кеша was a mascot, created by Victor Bahktin for a competition looking for a mascot for the V Winter Spartakiad of peoples of the USSR in 1982. Kesha was well received, & served as mascot for a few different winter game events between 1982 - 2004. There are a few little trinkets and medals of him around, he’s been animated, & he’s featured in The Winter Universiade 2019 Museum so hopefully his mascot career isn’t over just yet.

The only quote I could find from the creator of Kesha about him was this on what motivated his creation: